THE TROPIC BIRD. 
287 
Linn^us has given to the tropic bird, runs no risk 
now of being lost, like those of some of its congeners, 
. in the impenetrable obscurity which hangs over the 
modern nomenclature of birds. 
Far, far away from land, where the Atlantic 
waves roll beneath the northern tropic, our mariners 
are often favoured with a view of the bird which 
I am about to describe. The total absence of all 
other winged inhabitants of air, save now and then 
a Mother Carey's chicken, renders the appearance 
of Phaeton very interesting in this sequestered 
region of the deep ; and every soul on board hastens 
to get a glance at him, as he wings his lonely way 
through the liquid void. 
The plumage of this bird is black and white ; but 
the white on the upper parts of the body is not 
pure, having a tinge of salmon colour in it. The 
whole of the skin itself is entirely black. A streak 
of black feathers, two eighths of an inch broad, 
ranges from the upper mandible to the eyes, and is 
continued from thence in a curved line downwards^ 
for nearly an inch and a half in extent. Another 
range of black feathers commences at the shoulders, 
and ends with the tertials. Some of the feathers in 
it are tipped with white, and others are edged with 
it, whilst others, again, are quite black. The outer 
web, on the first five feathers is black ; and nearly 
half of the inner web is of the same colour ; the 
ends of these feathers being irregularly tipped with 
white, which prevails more in the first feather than 
in the remaining four. A tuft of dark-coloured 
feathers with white edges adorns the thighs, and 
