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Volume VI May-June, l^O-^- Number 3 
The Home Life of a Buccaneer 
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ILI.USTRATKI) WITH A DRAWING AND A I'HOTOG K A I’l I I!Y THK AUTHOR 
O N account of his thievish disposition and general lack of regard for the prop- 
erty of others, the man-o’-war bird [h'regata aquila) is looked upon as some- 
thing of a scapegrace. But however unsavory his reputation may be or un- 
conventional his ethics, he partially compensates by peculiar habits and bizarre 
appearance, which render him one of the most entertaining of all sea-fowl. 
During a visit to Laysan, a small but remarkable island situated eight hun- 
dred miles northwest-by-west from Honolulu, the writer had an excellent opportu- 
nity to learn something of the home life of these birds, l^aysan is a mere sandy 
atoll, slightly elevated, enclosing in its central dish-like hollow a placid lagoon, not 
connected with the sea. The white coral sand slopes up from a gra.ssy, weed- 
strewn plain surrounding the central body of water, to a rim near the sea beach, 
and the highest point is scarcely thirty feet above the surf. Bushes of various 
kinds, Chenopodium, Santalum, Scaevola, and coarse tussock}' grass cover most of 
the island, while handsome morning-glories, succulent purslane, and several other 
pink, yellow, and white flowers add a bit of color to the treeless, monotonous, 
stretches. 
Laysan is a veritable bird paradise. Thousands of albatrosses rear their young 
here each year, free from fear of injury. Sooty, gray-back, and white terns, noios, 
noddies, blue-faced and red-footed boobies, tropic birds, several kinds of shear- 
waters, petrels, and man-o’-war birds are in legions, not to omit five indigenous 
‘land birds’, including a rail and a duck. During the year numerous migrants, 
chiefly limicoline species, among which the bristle-thighed curlew and Pacific 
golden plover are prominent, visit these remote shores. How they find the islet is 
