THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
employment always classed them, with other occasional visitant birds, as 
‘ Rain brothers.’ In the evening of January 25, 1898, a flock of Frigate 
Birds was hovering above my house and kitchen at Point Cloates, and I shot 
two of them for identification. Two hours afterwards a hurricane was 
raging, and lasted all the night and following day. Some of these birds 
were observed on other occasions when hurricanes were in the vicinity. They 
appear to be nocturnal in their habits to a certain extent, because on one 
occasion when travelling near the North-west Cape, in very threatening 
weather, my native and self noticed small flocks of these birds in the course 
of the day, and at night, when camped close to the beach with the moon 
Just after the full, our attention was attracted by its light being at times 
temporarily obscured, although the sky was cloudless. Looking upwards we 
clearly saw several Frigate Birds flying northwards, their shape being 
unmistakable.” 
The bird figured and described is a female, the type of F. tunnyi 
collected on Bedout Island, Mid- west Australia, on the 19th of March, 1901. 
