FRIG A TE-BIRDS. 
287 
manner from bank to bank. O 11 reaching the opposite bank, the birds will either 
waddle on shore to preen and dress their feathers, and afford time for the digestion 
of their meal, or take flight to another piece of water. In general their periods of 
feeding and repose are marked out with great regularity. The females attend to 
the feeding of the young, this being effected by the old birds pressing their beak 
against their breast and raising the upper mandible, upon which the young help 
themselves to the fish in the pouch; and it is doubtless from this action that the 
fable of the pelican feeding her offspring from the blood of her own breast took 
its origin. The eggs, from two to three in number, have thick bluish white 
shells, encrusted with chalky matter, and it is not uncommon to find both eggs 
and half-fledged young in the same nest. In India, at least, the male and female 
birds not unfrequently associate in separate flocks. In spite of their bulk and 
clumsy form, pelicans display extreme activity when on the wing, flying in lines 
with the neck bent back over the body, and all who have seen flocks of these birds 
under such circumstances, describe it as one of the most imposing and striking 
scenes that can be imagined. 
Frigate-Birds. 
Family FllEGA TIB^E. 
The two remaining families of the order—each represented by a single genus 
—differ from all the foregoing in being completely pelagic in their habits. The 
frigate, or man-of-war birds, are characterised by their slender body, short and 
thick neck, long and powerful hooked beak, of which both mandibles are deflected 
at the end, the extremely short legs, feathered down to the toes, their elongated 
-and sharply-pointed wings, and the deep, swallow-like forking of the long tail. 
The feet differ from those of all other members of the order by the webs only 
extending a short distance up the long and sharply-clawed toes; and in the wings 
the first quill is the longest, while the tail has twelve feathers. There is a tract 
devoid of feathers around the eye and on the throat. The bones are more 
permeated by air-cavities than in any other bird, and there is a large dilatable 
air-sac beneath the throat. In the great frigate-bird (Fregatus aqiiila), which 
inhabits the warmer regions of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, the 
plumage of the adult male is brownish black, shot with metallic green and purple 
on the head, neck, back, breast, and sides, and shaded with grey on the wings. 
The eye is brown, with the surrounding bare space purplish blue, the beak is light 
blue at the base, white in the middle, and dark horn-colour at the tip, the throat-sac 
orange-red in the breeding-season, and the foot carmine-red above and orange 
beneath. The females differ by their duller tints, and the presence of a larger 
or smaller pure white area on the breast. The lesser frigate-bird ( Fminor ) is 
confined to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 
The frigate-bird, which has received the title of the Son-of-the-sun, is one 
of the most swift and active of all pelagic birds, spending much of its time on the 
wing, often far away from land, and subsisting largely on the fish which it compels 
terns and other birds to disgorge. In regard to their predatory habits, Mr. H. O. 
Forbes writes that in the Cocos-Iveeling Islands hiding in the lee of the cocoa- 
