82 
that he betrays his low propensities, and reveais his 
caitiff character.’ The frigate-pelican is the only 
one of the sea-birds that at all rivals him in his 
majesty of movement, but his narrow angular wings 
do not impressan observer with the same sense of 
stateliness as the full capacious van of the vulture. 
On Bare-bush key, a low island with no vegeta- 
tien above the height of the merest scrub, the crab- 
catchers, and little bittern, the ardeola exilis lay and 
hatch, and bring out their brood: but the great nur- 
sery for the herons is the salt-pond; in the man- 
groves that impenetrably line it on the sea-ward 
side, their nests are numerous, The blue gaulin, 
egretta cerulea, the egretta ruficollis, and other dark 
plumased egrets, with the nycticorax make nests of 
slight wicker-work among the mangrove foliage, but 
the pretty green bittern, which we call the ecrab- 
catcher, tke heredias virescens, and the diminutive 
ardeola exilis construct more elaborate nests, a cup 
of herbs and fibres bedded in a centre of interwoven 
sticks and slight twigs. The eggs of allthe heron~ 
tribe are of the colour they eall aqua-marine, a 
mingled blue and green tint; the eggs of the several 
genera and species differing only in rotundity or 
elongation; orin the greater or less depth of the 
sea-green hue. All the pelicanide, the pelican pro- 
per, the booby and the frigate bird lay white eggs, 
and the sternine, and laride blotched and spotted 
eggs. ‘Lhe pelicanide# make their nests on the rocks. 
Fsidore Bourden a French physiologist has well 
