OCEAN WANDERERS. 



215 



amongst the rocks, we might easily have passed them by 

 undiscovered ; for no birds had been noticed flying about 

 in the neighbourhood, and only one or two had been seen 

 further out at sea, as we approached the island. As it 

 was, the nests of several were soon tracked down ; and 

 after a lot of trouble, for these birds have formidable 

 bills and are very fierce, several of them were hauled out 

 of their deep underground retreats. During the process, 

 which seemed to give the more pleasure to the sailors in 

 proportion to the difficulty of the undertaking, the birds 

 uttered the most shrill and angry cries, a veiy unpleasant 

 and discord-making note. 



Of all sea-birds, however unpleasant its cry may be, 

 the boatswain-bird is, to us, incomparably the most lovely ; 

 whether you see it at such close quarters as these or flying 

 far away from land on the wide ocean. In company with 

 the large family of petrels, which includes such birds as 

 albatrosses, shearwaters and Mother Carey's chickens, 

 it is a true ocean-going bird, and is met with hundreds 

 of miles from shore. The farthest distance from land 

 at which I have myself seen boatswain-birds (or rather 

 at which I have actually noted down the fact), was in 

 latitude 26° 25' north ; longitude 37<=^ 44' west ; that is 

 to say, these birds, which belonged to another species 

 (Ph. americamis) than the ones on Orquilla, were 1,400 

 miles from their home in Bermuda.* This boatswain-bird 

 arrives in Bermuda every year about the end of February 

 and leaves about the end of September. We have seen it 

 breeding there in May, and it is practically certain that it 

 spends all the remaining part of the year, wandering over 

 the tropical part of the Atlantic far away from shore. How 

 long our birds on Orquilla remain on shore we caimot say. 



Comparatively few people can have had the opportunity 

 of handhng a live boatswain-bird ; and therefore the gener- 

 ality who see them at large, can have no proper idea of 

 their dazzling beauty ; for a stufled specimen gives one 



*This was on December 10th, 1903. Another bird I noted was 

 in lat. 210 51' N,, long. 43 » 35' W. 



