NATURALISTS CABINET 



Extreme indolence. 



and it must necessarily be so as the bird preys 

 upon the largest fish, and hidds them by dozens 

 in its pouch. Father Tertre affirms, that it will 

 hide as many fish as will serve sixty hungry men 

 for a meal. 



These birds, who are very lazy and indolent 

 when they have glutted themselves with fish, 

 retire when the toils of the day are over, a 

 little way on the shore to take their rest for the 

 night. They remain almost motionless, if not 

 fast asleep, till hunger calls them to break off 

 their repose; thus spending nearly the whole of 

 their life in eating and sleeping. When thus 

 incited to exertion, they fly from the spot, and, 

 raising themselves thirty or forty feet above the 

 surface of the sea, turn their head with one eye 

 downwards, and continue to fly in that posture 

 till they see a fish sufficiently near the surface : 

 they then dart down with astonishing swiftness, 

 seize it with unerring certainty, and store it up 

 in their pouch. Having done this, they rise 

 again; and continue the same actions till they 

 have procured a competent stock. 



The ancients, who were particularly fond of the 

 marvellous, almost unanimously agreed in giving 

 this bird admirable qualities and parental affec- 

 tions ; struck, perhaps, with this extraordinary 

 figure, they were willing to supply it with as ex- 

 traordinary appetites ; and having found it with 

 a- large reservoir, they were pleased with turning 



