A Booby Farm 389 



excrescence on the cat-head. I held my breath as he 

 crept nearer to it, and was suddenly relieved to hear 

 a loud squawking, almost like that of a suddenly irri- 

 tated parrot. Joe returned to me, exhibiting to my 

 delighted gaze a large white bird pitifuUy struggling 

 to be free. Then the other men came around, and 

 there was a long and voluble conversation about the 

 bird, of which I wearied and went away to sleep. When 

 I again saw the captive it had been skinned, but to 

 my astonishment nothing was done with either skin 

 or carcase — after a short time they were both flung 

 overboard. 



Less than three months afterwards, in another ship, 

 I awoke one morning, to find by the strange sounds 

 and motions made by the vessel that she had run 

 ashore, and when morning dawned I saw that many 

 Boobies and men-of-war or frigate birds were hovering 

 about us, the former filling the air with their shrill 

 cries, and the latter calmly and apparently contemp- 

 tuously watching us. Two days after we all left the 

 wrecked vessel (she was broken in half) for good, and 

 landing upon the little sandy cay which formed the 

 apex of the vast coral reef upon which our ship had 

 been wrecked, we found almost the whole sandy area 

 in possession of these birds. Boobies. They did not 

 venture over to the rocky side, for reasons which will 

 appear later. It was a most surprising sight to us, 

 to me especially, a city-bred boy, to see the wide beach 

 covered with vociferous birds sitting on eggs lying in 

 small depressions in the sand, or going to and fro, 

 either waddling or on the wing, but none evincing the 

 slightest fear of us. It was an entirely new sensation 

 to have a bird as big as a duck, but with twice the 

 wing-spread, come flapping busily along and not 

 trouble to avoid one ; indeed, I was knocked down 



