GANNET AND FRIGATE-BIRD 



291 



Man-o'-War "Hawk." It is a long-distance 

 flyer, and goes out far from land. Its beak 

 is long, hooked at the end, and really very strong, 

 but its legs are so short and stumpy they seem 

 to be deformed. Under the throat there is a 

 patch of skin quite devoid of feathers, which 

 really is a sort of air-sac. 



I once found the roosting-place of a colony 

 of about forty of these birds, on the top of a 

 perpendicular cliff seventy-five feet high on the 

 seaward side of an island at the northwestern 

 point of Trinidad. The birds came there regu- 

 larly every night, to roost in some small dead 

 trees that almost overhung the precipices. 

 They were not nesting at that time, however, 

 and were so very wakeful that even though I 



went to their roost before daylight, I did not 

 succeed in killing even one bird. 



This bird inhabits the warm oceans of the 

 Old World, as well as the New, and Mr. H. O. 

 Forbes states that in the Cocos-Keeling Islands 

 they are regular pirates, and gain their liveli- 

 hood by remaining inactive, and forcing honest 

 fisherfolk, like the gannets, and noddy terns; to 

 disgorge for their lazy benefit the fish they bring 

 home from distant fishing-grounds. 



Mr. R. J. Beck found Frigate-Birds nesting 

 in the Guadaloupe Archipelago, which were so 

 tame and unsuspicious that he was able to 

 approach quite near, and make the photo- 

 graph which is reproduced on the opposite 

 page. 



