SEA BIRDS AT HOME. 



205. 



staring at us with their strange, rather mad-looking eyes. 

 Doubtless they were wondering what manner of creatures 

 we were, for we were almost certainly the first human 

 beings they had ever examined at such close quarters. 



Far above us, wheeling in never ceasing graceful 

 curves, are hundreds upon hundreds of frigate-birds. 

 High above the topmost trees, growing on the summit 

 of the island, and above all the other birds, they are lying 

 in wait for the gannets, whose pouches are full of succulent 

 young fish. Their wings are spread like boards to the 

 wind, and their long tail-feathers now and again open and 

 shut hke a giant pair ot scissors. 



Almost at once we come upon the nests of the gannets, 

 scattered in endless profusion along the steep slopes of 

 the island. There are three different species represented 

 here, viz., the red-footed gannet {Sula piscator) the 

 booby (8. sula) and the blue -faced gannet (S, cyanops). 

 Perhaps the most common was the red-footed gannet, 

 then came the booby, and a long way after both, the blue-^ 

 faced gannet. 



Each kind has its own peculiar and distinct quarters. 

 The red-footed gannet was invariably in the low shrub - 

 like trees of the black mangrove, where it makes an untidy^ 

 nest of sticks, twigs, and grass roots. Totally out of 

 proportion to the size of the bird, this nest looks as 

 comfortless and small, in comparison to the dimensions 

 of the bird, as a woodpigeon's. Sometimes we found as 

 many as ten or twelve nests in one small tree. One egg 

 is laid in each nest — white and chalky-looking, like that 

 of a cormorant. 



Many nests contained young in various stages of growth, 

 from the naked just-hatched chick, through the beautiful 

 white downy stages, to birds just beginning to acquire 

 brown flight-feathers. This was in the month of January ; 

 and the red-footed gannet was then more advanced with its 

 domestic arrangements than either of the two other kinds. 

 The young of the intermediate stage are like round balls 

 of exquisitely beautiful, flu£f;y white down — like a powder- 



