Mr. 0. Salvin on the Sea-birds of British Honduras . 383 
able enough, but doubtless has its drawbacks. Fancy undergoing 
voluntarily a Robinson-Crusoe life for years on an island only 
large enough to hold yourself and your cocoa-nuts ! Yet it 
suits a tolerably well-to-do negro admirably; he has plenty of 
opportunity “ to cock up his toes, to make the time pass." But 
I must not be hard upon the inhabitants of Middle Cay; if 
contentment is a blessing, they were blessed, and they made 
Mr. R. and myself as comfortable as they could the few days we 
passed there. Bald-pate Pigeons are common on this Cay, and 
every evening about sunset I used to bag a few, those not wanted 
for the collection going as a contribution to the larder. A single 
Fern (Acrostichum aureum) grows on this Cay, the common species 
of all the lowland swamps of the West Indies. I do not know 
how many brothers Sam had, in addition to Joe : his big brother 
Bill, with a bigger schooner than the ‘ Mary Ann/ was at the 
Cay, calling for cocoa-nuts. He too worked like Sam with a 
prospect of a Cay and cocoa-nuts before him. Having to com¬ 
plete his cargo at South-west-of-all Cay, I went with him to visit 
the colony of Noddies. The distance was short, and all inside the 
reef. I was prepared to see a good many birds, but nothing 
approaching the numbers that are there crowded on one small 
island. Noddies everywhere : Noddies at sea and fishing in the 
shallows; Noddies in the cocoa-nuts and mangroves; Noddies 
basking by scores on the sands, and flying through the trees by 
hundreds. There must have been many thousands in all; and 
what must the numbers have been when the Sooty Terns flocked 
to the same island in such numbers that their eggs might be 
gathered by the basketful ? I had hardly put my foot ashore 
when I discovered there were two species of Auous on the island, 
S the second species being A. tenuirostris , and easily recognized. 
Instead of the cawing note of the common species, the <c Piccary 
y Noddy,” as the Creoles call it, has a more Tern-like cry, whence, 
perhaps, its name. The nest of the Noddy is made of sticks a 
large loose structure heaped together at the top of a cocoa-nut 
tree, or on the outer branches of a mangrove. That of the 
(( Piccary Noddy ” is small and compact, made of slender twigs, 
seaweed, and bits of grass, and glued together in every available 
fork and on every horizontal branch. 
