558 ZOOLOGY. 
attempted to fly away. All you had to do was to take them up, 
pull the long red feather out of their sterns, and set them adrift 
again. Queen Moé was right. On Tubai you may pick up tropie 
birds as easily as a child picks up storm-worn shells on the sea 
shore. It was really no small comfort to be able to get specimens 
of this beautiful bird without betraying their confidence by shoot l 
ing them from the schooner. Small-brained as they are, they are 
gifted with an extraordinary amount of inquisitiveness, particu- 
larlyʻin the early morning. As we bowl along before the flashing ; 
trade-wind, we hear a few harsh screams, and up come a pair of 
‘bosens’ with their bright scarlet tail feathers glowing in the mom- — 
ing sun. They make two or three sweeps around us, evidently 
comparing notes, and then away into the deep blue, on their own” 
private affairs. They fish generally like the tern, to whom Isus — 
pect they are cousins-german ; but they have a way sometimes of 
hovering perpendicularly, with the bill pressed against the breast, 
that I have never observed but in one other bird, the black-and- 
white kingfisher of the Nile. When the ‘bosen’ has sighted his 
prey in this position, he turns over in the deftest manner, and goes 
down straight as a gannet, up to his neck, no further, and Te 
mounts for a fresh hover. I have never had the good fortune . 
see the white-tailed phaeton fishing, often as I have looked ~ m 
him; indeed I have rarely met him out at sea at all. The deme a 
I have seen were hanging about the high cliffs of the Society a 
Islands; and I do not exaggerate when I state that Ihwomh 
more than one with a glorious waving white tail feather, mo 4 
feet long though the bird itself was not much larger than a blaci a; 
headed gull. What they do with their tails when they feed i 
my comprehension. 
bush; the latter really handsome creatures, : 
herring-gull, beautifully marked with black and, white ae w 
con). The bill at this stage of their existence is black, WY” ai 
When you find your young friend under a bush, he 1s ® and his 
in a small basin of coral-dust, without any nest at alh come 
surroundings show him to be a cleanly thing. wa yn 
upon him suddenly, he squalls and croaks and wabbles 4 drive è 
is as disconcerted as a warm city man when you try to nits 
à 
