ILLUSTRATIONS OF FOREIGN OOLOGY. 
PHAETIION. 
Plate LXXXIV. 
The tropic birds are generally met with either far from land or in 
the vicinity of inaccessible or seldom visited islands, and the notices 
that occur in the accounts of voyages, except in some of a late date, 
That tropic birds icere breeding on such an island, from the re- 
semblance of the species to each other, can almost never be taken 
with any specific certainty, but merely that one species or other did 
breed in the locality mentioned. It is therefore with satisfaction, 
that we are now enabled to give figures of the eggs of the three 
known species, the identity of which we are certain, specimens of 
the birds having accompanied the eggs, and no other species being 
known to breed in the locality where they were obtained. 
The nesting places of the different species of Phaethon have 
been generally described as formed upon the shelves or ledges of 
rocks ; but holes in the ground and trees are also mentioned, and 
we transcribe a few of the authorities,, that their accounts may be 
compared with those of our correspondents who have themselves 
seen and taken the birds from their nests. 
Dr. Latham, when writing of P. cethereus, states, that they “ arc 
said to breed in the woods on the ground beneath them. They are 
nowhere more numerous than on Palmerston Island, where these 
birds, as well as the Frigates, were in such plenty, that the trees 
were absolutely loaded with them, and so tame as to suffer them- 
selves to be taken off the boughs with the hand.” Of the P. 
rubricauda the same author writes, “ They are found in great num- 
bers in the island of Mauritius, where they make the nest in the 
ground under the trees.” 
