
Sa ee et nen 
y 

s THE NATURAL HISTORY 
two feet long. In Otaheite, (an ifland in the 
South Sea, vifited by Captain Cook) the people 
ufe thefe feathers to ornament their warriors, 
and in the Caribee Iflands, of America, the favages 
put them through the eriftle of the nofe, to make 
themfelves. appear more handfome, or more 
frightful. . 
Mr. Leguat fays, that in one of his voyages 
the Tropic Birds were exceedingly troubiefome to 
the failors,.and. frequently flew away with their 
hats. They lay two eggs, and live upon fifh. 
Sometimes they fly to aprodigious height, and 
they are often feen with the Man of War Bird, 
Yan Boobies, purfuing the Flying-fith as they rife 
out of the water, to efcape from the Dolphins 
and Bonitos. Sometimes they reft on the furface 
of the water; and when the weather has been 
calm, they have been feen perched on the back of 
drowfy Tortoifes, as they have been floating on 
the fea. | 
They breed in the woods, on the ground, under — 
-trees. ‘They have been found on the iflands of 
‘St. Helena, and Afcenfion, in the Atlantic Ocean; 
and of Mauritius, near Africa, and in New’ Hol- 
land, and ‘many places in the South Seas. In 
Palmerfton Ifland the trees were quite loaded with 
them; and they were fo tame, ‘as to fuffer them- 
{elves 

