THE ISLAND OF THE DEAD 



those poor little birds with a grim and deadly de- 

 liberation. When the mothers, soon returning, flut- 

 tered down, they did not attack the booby, but pro- 

 tected their little ones by covering them with body 

 and wings. Conviction came upon me that it was 

 instinctive for the booby to kill the parasitical rabi- 

 horcado; and likewise instinctive for the rabihorcado 

 to preserve the life of the booby. 



A shout from Manuel directed me toward the ex- 

 treme eastern end of the island. On the way I 

 discovered many little dead birds, and the farther 

 I went the more I found. Among the low bushes 

 were also many old rabihorcados, dead and dry. 

 Some were twisted among the network of branches, 

 and several were hanging in limp, grotesque, hor- 

 ribly suggestive attitudes of death. Manuel had 

 all of the Indian's leaning toward the mystical, and 

 he believed the rabihorcados had destroyed them- 

 selves. Starved they may very well have been, 

 but to me the gales of that wind-swept, ocean desert 

 accounted for the hanging rabihorcados. Still, when 

 face to face with the island, with its strife, and its 

 illustration of the survival of the fittest, all that 

 Manuel had claimed and more, I had to acknowledge 

 the disquieting force of the thing and its stunning 

 blow to an imagined knowledge of life and its secrets. 



Suddenly Manuel shouted and pointed westward. 

 I saw long white streams of sea-birds coming toward 

 the island. My glass showed them to be boobies. 

 An instant later thousands of rabihorcados took wing 

 as if impelled by a common motive. Manuel ran 

 ahead in his excitement, turning to shout to me, 

 and then to point toward the wavering, swelling, 



23 



