ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



ung okapi that was desti I for the Zoological Park 



Ex litio 



Photograph In Herbert Lang 



Belgian Government, and himself a lover of 

 animals and an excellent naturalist, will take 

 the okapi to Belgium. No one is better fitted 

 for the task and there is excellent reason to 

 believe that his efforts will be crowned with suc- 

 cess. Let us hope that this record will introduce 

 a new era, affording an excellent opportunity 

 for the closer study of many of the rare Congo 

 mammals which have never before been exhibit- 

 ed alive in any zoological garden. 



THE FRIGATE-BIRD POST OF THE 



PACIFIC. 



By E. Hopkinson, M.B., D.S.O. 



From Avicultural Magazine. 



IN a note to a paper by Bowdler Sharpe on 

 a few birds from the Ellice Islands ["Pro- 

 ceedings of the Zoological Society." 1S7S. p. 

 274], the Rev. S. J. Whitmee. a missionary in 

 the Pacific, writes on one of the verv last birds 



one would expect to hear of in captivity as 

 follows: 



'"The frigate-bird .... is domesticated by 

 the natives (of the Ellice Islands), and when 

 I was there in 1870 I saw scores of them 

 about the villages sitting on long perches 

 erected for them near the beach. The na- 

 tives procure the young birds and tie them 

 by the leg and feed them till they are tame. 

 Afterwards they let them loose and they go 

 out to sea together to get their food and re- 

 turn to their perches in the villages at in- 

 tervals." 



Some little time back, before I had come 

 across the above. I had heard a slightly differ- 

 ent version of the same from a friend of mine, 

 much of whose life had been passed in the Solo- 

 mons. Gilberts, and other little-known Pacific 

 Islands. In many places he had often seen cap- 

 tive frigate-birds, but in one particularly iso- 

 lated island or group the natives had got as far 

 as using these birds as postmen ! These island- 

 ers were dependent for the little outside trade 



7.-S I 



