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It would seem that this species frequents all the seas of the warmer parts of the globe, and 
especially the Tropics, assembling in large flocks during the breeding-season, and dispersing over the 
wide ocean again as soon as the parental obligations are discharged. Their food consists of young 
turtles, cuttle-fish, crabs, and fish of all kinds. Being furnished with a capacious and expansive pouch 
they are able to stow away in a convenient manner all they can seize by way of plunder quite irre- 
spective of their immediate wants. 
Audubon found them breeding in large numbers in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Florida Keys ; 
and he has given us the following interesting account, which further illustrates the amazing power of 
wing already mentioned : — “ About the middle of May (a period which to me appeared very late for 
birds found in so warm a climate as that of the Florida Keys), the Frigate Pelicans assemble in flocks 
of from fifty to five hundred pairs or more. They are seen flying at a great height over the islands on 
which they have bred many previous seasons, courting for hours together ; after which they return 
towards the mangroves, alight on them, and at once begin to repair the old nests or construct new 
ones. They pillage each other’s nests of their materials, and make excursions for more to the nearest 
keys. They break the dry twigs of trees with ease, passing swiftly on wing, and snapping them off 
by a single grasp of their powerful bill. It is indeed a beautiful sight to see them when thus occupied, 
especially when several are so engaged, passing and repassing with the swiftness of thought over the 
trees whose tops are blasted ; their purpose appears as if accomplished by magic. It sometimes 
happens that the bird accidentally drops a stick Avhile travelling towards its nest, when, if this should 
happen over the water, it plunges after it and seizes it with its bill before it has reached the waves.” 
For a long period the only knowledge we possessed of the Frigate bird was that afforded by those 
who had voyaged in the tropical seas and studied the bird in its distant haunts ; but in the early part 
of 1871 a pair of live ones, the gift of Captain Dow, were received at the Zoological Society’s Gardens ; 
and home naturalists had thus an opportunity of studying this remarkable form in a living state. 
But when I first looked on these captives, moping gloomily on their perch, with a mere dish of water 
beneath them, and their noble wings folded up in languid misery, I could not help pitying from my 
very heart these captives from the ocean, w'hose fate seemed almost harder than that of the “ lord of 
the plains ” on the opposite side of the Gardens, condemned to pass his life within an iron railing only 
ten feet square ! From observing the Frigate bird under such circumstances it is impossible to form 
any adequate idea of what it is in a state of nature, where its whole individuality depends on its 
wonderful speed, its long powers of endurance, and the graceful aerial evolutions it is able to perform. 
Audubon, who was familiar with it in its native element, gave a spirited drawing of it dashing head- 
long through the air in pursuit of its quarry. In the ‘Field’ of September 23, 1871, there is an 
equally characteristic figure of the same bird as it was then to be seen in the Gardens (accompanied 
by an excellent description)— resting moodily on its feet, with the wings drooping, and the head 
drawn closely in upon the shoulders. 
