180 Mr. E. Newton’s Ornithological Notes from Mauritius. 
the same rank in a natural arrangement as well-established 
species. 
XVIII.— Ornithological Notes from Mauritius. By Edward 
Newton, M.A., C.M.Z.S. No. I. A Visit to Round Island . 
Bound Island lies about twenty-five or thirty miles north-east 
of Mauritius, and is about a mile and a half long by a mile wide. 
The land rises at once from the sea to about the height of a thou¬ 
sand feet, and is consequently very steep. Here the Bed-tailed 
Tropic-bird (. Phaeton rubricauda , Bodd.) breeds in very large 
numbers. They are the tamest birds I ever saw, and do not 
know what fear is. They never attempt to leave their single 
egg or nestling at one’s approach, but merely stick out their 
feathers and scream, pecking at one’s legs with their beaks. 
It is the fashion on the island for visitors to remove the old 
bird from its egg by a slight shove, and then placing the foot 
gently on its head, to draw out the long tail-feathers. It 
resents this insult by screaming and snapping, but never tries 
to escape by flying or shuffling along the ground; in fact, 
like all birds which have their legs placed so far behind, they 
cannot rise off a flat surface, but require a drop of a few feet to 
give them an impetus. One that had an unusually tight tail I 
lifted up and held in the air by that appendage, and it flapped 
in my hand until the feathers gave way, when it flew off, but 
having left a young one behind, returned almost to my feet in 
two minutes or so, as if nothing had happened. They do not 
appear at all particular in the choice of a place to deposit their 
single egg. They make no nest; but the shelter of an overhang¬ 
ing rock, or the protection of the arched roots of the Vacoa (a 
species of Pandanus), seems preferred. On one occasion I found 
an old lady asleep on her egg, and she was extremely indignant 
at being stirred up and having her tail stolen. It is curious that 
I did not see a single egg without its owner sitting on it, and 
perhaps one may hence presume that they feed at night. In some 
places their nests were excessively numerous, their eggs or young 
occurring every few yards. There were to be found about as many 
young as eggs, some of the former almost as large as their mothers, 
and nearly able to fly; but I did not see a single immature bird 
