TALES OF FISHES 



dismal croak of ravens. Perfectly built for the air, 

 they were like feathers blown by a breeze. Light, 

 thin, long, sharp, with enormous spread of wings, 

 beautiful with the beauty of dead, blue-black sheen, 

 and yet hideous, too, with their grisly necks and cruel, 

 crooked beaks and vulture eyes, they were surely 

 magnificent specimens of winged creation. 



Nests of dried weeds littered the ground, and 

 eggs and young were everywhere. The little ones 

 were covered with white down, and the developing 

 feathers on their wings were turning black. They 

 squalled unremittingly, which squalling I decided 

 was not so much on my account as because of a 

 swarm of black flies that attacked them when the 

 mothers flew away. I was hard put to it myself to 

 keep these flies, large as pennies and as flat, from 

 eating me alive. They slipped up my sleeves and 

 trousers and their bite made a wasp-sting pleasure 

 by comparison. 



By rushing into a flock of rabihorcados I succeeded 

 several times in catching one in my hands. And 

 spreading it out, I made guesses as to width from 

 tip to tip of wings. None were under seven feet; 

 one measured all of eight. They made no strenuous 

 resistance and regarded me with cold eyes. Every 

 flock that I put to flight left several dozen little ones 

 squalling in the nests; and at one place an old 

 booby waddled to the nests and began to maltreat 

 the young rabihorcados. Instincts of humanity bade 

 me scare the old brute away until I happened to 

 remember the relation existing between the two 

 species. Then I watched. With my own eyes I 

 saw that grizzled booby pick and bite and wring 



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