::::;::::*? TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO B:-"--" 



pikes. These glided past in schools or fought in swarms 

 over bits of meat and bread. Sharks now and then 

 cut the water with their long fins and might be tempted 

 with pork. Red Snajjpers and Grunts, the latter with 

 beautiful blue and gold-lined heads, were abundant, 

 and over the stern rail one could soon catch enough 

 for dinner. 



Many hours after the low coast of Yucatan had sunk 

 below the horizon, two coral islets appeared, — two 

 desolate crescents of sand bravely defying the great 

 waste of waters. Yet they do not deserve the term 

 desolate, for several hundred sturdy feathered beings 

 know these little plots of dry land as home. Booby is 

 the meaningless name by which these birds are known 

 to man, but little care they ; a world of ocean with fish 

 in plenty, a mate, a few square inches of dry sand, 

 and they are happy and content. The steamers which 

 pass now and then might cease to come, mankind 

 and his civilization might vanish from the earth, and 

 the Boobies would miss nothing. They are blood 

 brothers to the Gannets, but are feathered brown 

 above instead of white, and enjoy each other's com- 

 pany more, flying in long oblique lines close to the 

 water. Now and then one dropped from the flock 

 like a plummet, seized a fish, swallowed it, and rising, 

 caught up with his companions, all of whom were 

 moving steadily onward, paying not the slightest at- 

 tention to the steamer. 



^- 12 ^ 



