298 



AVES -ORDER PELECANIFORMES. 



The Pelicans and 



their Allies.— 



Order 



Peleeaniformes. 



Fig. B4.— Thb Yeliow-billid 

 Teopic-Bikd (Phwtonjiavinstrii). 



the Tropio-Birda (Phaethontes), the Gannets (Sulce), the Cormorants and 

 Darters {Phalaerocoraces), the Pelecans {Pelecani), and the Frigate-Birds 

 {Fregati). As their name implies, the Tropic-Birds are 

 inhabitants of the tropics. They are often an interest- 

 ing feature of a sea-voyage, 

 as they fly, high in the air, 

 round and round the steamer, 

 with a beating flight, as if 

 everything depended on the haste they made. 

 The osteological and anatomical characters which 

 distinguish them from the other Pelican-like 

 birds are many, but their external form suffici- 

 ently distinguishes them, their lengthened tail 

 being especially remarkable. The bill is nearly 

 straight, and not hooked as in the allied forms, 

 neither is there any perceptible pouch. One of 

 the best accounts of the habits of the Tropic- 

 Birds is that given by Mr. W. E. D. Scott on P. 

 flavirostris, as observed by him in Jamaica. 

 He writes: — "Of fifteen specimens procured 

 on the 27th of February five were shot, 

 eight were taken in a cave which opened by 

 a small mouth from the clifi^, and two were 

 secured in holes in the cliff'. The cave where the' birds were found had 

 a very small entrance, about large enough for a man to crawl into, in the 

 face of the cliff. This was approachable only in the calmest weather, in 

 a boat. The entrance led at once into a spacious chamber of irregular shape. 

 Going directly back from the mouth the cavern was some 60 ft. deep. 

 It was at its widest point some 70 or 80 ft., and oval in shape as a 

 whole. The bottom was covered with coarse sand and gravel, and boulders 

 of varying size, evidently having fallen from above, were scattered thickly 

 over this floor, except at the extreme back of the cavern furthest from the 

 sea. The height of the roof or ceiling, which was of an uneven, rough 

 surface, was about 25 ft., and many bats were hanging wherever the 

 projections or inequalities afforded them opportunity. Toward the back 

 of this chamber five birds were secured, each one sitting on a single egg. 

 The place chosen for the nesting; site — for this is all it can be termed— was in 

 all these cases where two boulders on the gravelly floor lay close together, 

 just leaving room on the ground for the birds to crawl between them. Tifo 

 birds were obtained in like situations that had not laid, and may have been 

 simply resting. The females were, in every case, the birds that were sitting 

 on the eggs, and it was quite evident, upon dissection, that the single egg 

 forms the complement in these cases. The birds taken from the holes in the 

 cliff, and also those taken in this cave, were very tame, and were captured 

 readily without attempting to escape. Later on the same day a bird was 

 found, with a single egg laid at the bottom of one of the holes in the face of 

 the cliff. 



"In breeding the birds seem eminently gregarious, and the colonies at 

 different points often reach an aggregate of at least fifty pairs. At sea, far 

 out of sight of land, the birds are much more solitary in their habits, single 

 birds being frequently met with, and it has been rare in my experience to 

 meet with more than four individuals together in such locations." 



