4-00 The National Geographic Magazine 



BREEDING COLONY OF MAN-o'-WAR BIRDS 



Old black bird on nest and young white birds scattered through thicket. The nests are built 

 on sea-grape bushes surrounded by impenetrable cactus 



of bird life. Our data was not at all en- 

 couraging, since such as we had only 

 established the existence of bird colonies 

 in 1857 and 1896. Whether the birds 

 had been there this season or, if so, had 

 been broken up by the rather unusual 

 visit from some becalmed ship, we did 

 not know. 



Schooners carrying fifteen or twenty 

 dories and a crew of twenty or more ne- 

 groes are continuously searching the 

 shallow waters of the Bahamas for 

 sponges, and, as might be expected, have 

 from time immemorial made a practice 

 of landing upon islands for birds' eggs 

 and their young and, when possible, tak- 

 ing the breeding birds themselves, with 

 the result that in recent years bird life in 

 the Bahamas is threatened with extinc- 

 tion. Some of the readers may recall Mr 

 Chapman's efforts, covering three sea- 

 sons, to locate on these islands a breeding 

 colony of the beautiful pink flamingo, 

 and how at last he succeeded, after dis- 

 covering a breeding site many miles in 



the interior, on a large marshy island and 

 so remote as to have escaped the vigilant 

 eyes of the watchful natives. 



The extreme isolation of Cay Verde 

 and the absence of protecting land in the 

 neighborhood make the landing too un- 

 certain to warrant a trip that far in 

 search of eggs or young. 



However, as the yacht approached a 

 little nearer we noticed high over the 

 island the graceful, soaring flight of sev- 

 eral man-o'-war birds, and later could 

 see, coming from all directions, small 

 numbers of boobies, bringing in their 

 pouch the evening meal for their clam- 

 orous offspring, provided they were not 

 intercepted in mid-air and compelled to 

 disgorge for the benefit of that hawk of 

 the sea, the man-o'-war bird, whose diet 

 consists wholly of flying fish or the toll 

 collected from the good-natured boobies, 

 the presence of which alone makes pos- 

 sible a certain supply of fish for the 

 young of its piratical neighbor. 



