THE TROPIC BIRD. 26 1 



The group comprehends those Birds which have the base of the 

 bill denuded of feathers, the nostrils mere slots, in which the opening 

 is scarcely perceptible ; the skin of the throat more or less capable of 

 distension ; the tongue small. Some of the group are large and heavy 

 birds, but they are all gifted with powerful wings ; they are, at the 

 same time, good swimmers. 



The Tropic Bird {Phaeton), 



The Palmipede we are about to notice received from Linnaeus the 

 mythological name of Phaeton, in allusion to the son of Apollo and 

 Clymene, who is said to have made an audacious attempt to drive the 

 chariot of the Sun. 



These Birds are well known to navigators as the harbingers which 

 foretell the approach to the tropics. They are distinguished by two 

 long, slender tail-feathers, whence their French name of paitte en 

 queue. They are gifted with great length of wing, which, with their 

 feeble feet, proclaims them formed especially for flight. They are 

 accordingly swift and untiring in flight, heedlessly going far out to sea ; 

 forming, as Lesson remarks, a well-defined and purely geographical 

 group, their homes being in rocky islands, to which they usually 

 return every night. Nevertheless, he frequently met with them in 

 tracks of ocean far from any land, possibly they having been swept 

 beyond their natural limits by the sudden squalls and hurricanes so 

 frequent in equatorial seas. 



The Common Tropic Bird {Phaeton cethereus, Fig. 96) seems to 

 confine itself, according to this writer, to the Atlantic Ocean, stop- 

 ping near the confines of the Indian Ocean ; the other species, the 

 Roseate Tropic Bird {Phaeton phoenicurus), which is larger than the 

 former, seeming to belong further eastward, both meeting in nearly 

 equal numbers at the Mauritius and other islands of the same group. 

 Their flight is described as calm and quiet, composed of frequent 

 strokes of the wing, interrupted by sudden falls. The bird is about 

 the size of a partridge, with red bill and markings under the lower 

 mandible ; in general appearance it resembles the Gulls, but has 

 longer and more powerful wings; the legs and feet are vermilion 

 red, the latter webbed ; the tail has two long, narrow feathers. One 

 of their breeding-places is the Bermudas, where the high rocks which 

 surround the island are a protection from the attacks of the fowler. 



The Yellow-beaked Phaeton {Phaeton flavirostris), a third species, 

 is distinguished by the colour of its beak. It is a native of the Islands 

 of Bourbon and Mauritius. 



