488 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
vigorously with their formidable bills in defence of their home. 
The young also show fight; in fact, the species is peculiarly fierce 
and untameable. Three young ones I kept alive for about two 
months maintained their savage nature till the last, refusing to 
feed themselves, striking viciously at anyone who approached 
them, and even at one another. ‘Their flight is peculiar, but 
graceful, and they never seem tired of their perpetual wheeling and 
manouvring. They take beautiful headers, like a Tern or Gannet, 
in pursuit of small fish. It is rare to meet with a specimen 
possessing two good long central tail-feathers; one is generally 
smaller and shorter than the other. Some of these feathers are of 
a lovely orange-pink. They get rubbed off during incubation, and 
may be picked up near the breeding-places. Two broods are 
reared, fresh eggs being found as early as the 10th April, and again 
at the end of June: there are intermediate examples, probably laid 
by birds whose first nests have been visited by the spoiler. That 
these birds revisit their breeding-stations year after year is, I think, 
clearly shown by the following circumstance :—Mr. Bartram, by 
way of experiment, slit the two webs of one foot, and cut off one 
or two claws, of a young bird in a nest near his house. Next year 
this bird turned up again, and made its nest close to the same spot. 
This attachment to the family residence is, I fancy, far from un- 
usual with migratory birds. Swallows and other familiar visitors 
to England are known to possess it in a marked degree. Ona 
calm day the bright greenish blue tint of the Atlantic waters, as 
they gently rise and fall above the white sands below, is reflected 
on the glossy white breasts and under parts of the Tropic-birds in 
a most remarkable manner as they cruise about, at no great height, 
along the shores or among the islands. During the breeding 
season the parent birds “ off duty” are to be seen in the neigh- 
bourhood of their nesting-places all the morning till about noon, 
when the greater part disappear in a rather mysterious manner. 
I came to the conclusion that they proceed to a considerable 
distance out to sea, returning at dusk, and this opinion was much 
strengthened by seeing two old birds sitting on the water one 
afternoon, al, least one hundred miles from the Bermuda shores. 
This was during a voyage from Bermuda to New York, on the 
7th August, 1874, when the second “ young hopeful” had probably 
left, or was about to leave, the nest, and therefore does not prove 
much; but it shows that these strong-winged birds, who would 
