498 FRIGATE PELICAN. 



yet as swiftly as himself. They are now all at the same height, and each 

 as it overtakes him, lashes him with its wings, and tugs at his prey. See ! 

 one has fairly robbed him, but before he can secure the contested fish 

 it drops. One of the other birds has caught it, but he is pursued by 

 all. From bill to bill, and through the air, rapidly falls the fish, un- 

 til it drops quite dead on the waters, and sinks into the deep. Whatever 

 disappointment the hungry birds feel, they seem to deserve it all. 



Sights like these you may every day see, if you take ship and sail for 

 the Florida Keys. I have more to tell you, however, and of things that 

 to me were equally pleasing. While standing in the cool veranda of 

 Major Glassel of the United States army, at Key West, I observed a 

 Frigate Pelican that had forced a Cayenne Tern, yet in sight, to drop a 

 fish, Avhich the broad-winged warrior had seized as it fell. This fish was 

 rather large for the Tern, and might probably be about eight inches in 

 length. The Frigate Pelican mounted with it across bis bill about a 

 hundred yards, and then tossing it up caught it as it fell, but not in the 

 proper manner. He therefore dropped it, but before it had fallen many 

 yards, caught it again. Still it was not in a good position, tlie weight of 

 the head, it seemed, having prevented the bird from seizing it by that 

 part. A second time the fish was thrown upwards, and now at last was 

 received in a convenient manner, that is, with its head downwards, and 

 immediately swallowed. 



When the morning light gladdens the face of nature, and while 

 the warblers are yet waiting in silence the first rays of the sun, whose ap- 

 pearance they will hail with songs of joy, the Frigate Bird, on extended 

 pinions, sails from his roosting place. Slowly and gently, with retracted 

 neck he glides, as if desirous of quietly trying the renovated strength of 

 his wings. Toward the vast deep he moves, rising apace, and before any 

 other bird views the bright orb emerging from the waters. Pure is the 

 azure of the heavens, and rich the deep green of the smooth sea below ; 

 there is every prospect of the finest weather; and now the glad bird 

 shakes his pinions ; and far up into the air, far beyond the reach of man's 

 unaided eye, he soars in his quiet but rapid flight. There he floats in 

 the pure air, but thither can fancy alone follow him. Would that I could 

 accompany him ! But now I see him again, with half-closed wings, gently 

 falling towards the sea. He pauses a while, and again dives through the 

 air. Thrice, four times, has he gradually approached the surface of the 

 ocean ; now he shakes his pinions as violently as the swordsman whirls his 



