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Updated: May 6, 2025
"They must be, I suspect, from your account of them, Walter, cormorants, or rather that species of them known as the frigate-bird." No one is so eager as a naturalist when in search of a specimen, and we soon saw that Mr Sedgwick would be far more pleased if we took him round to the cliff, than should we catch a boat-load of fish.
And now the crew of the Catamaran had the fortune to witness one of those singular incidents that may sometimes be seen upon the ocean, a little drama of Nature, in which three of her creatures, all three differing in kind, formed the dramatis persona. The cock frigate-bird, on turning to look for a fresh victim, espied one, or that which was likely to become one, almost directly beneath him.
It was not the black albatross, the frigate-bird, nor the booby. Though of like colour, there was no bird of such form as that. There was neither beast nor fish belonging to the sea that could show such a shape above its surface.
Why, then, may not his statements, about the frigate-bird going to sleep upon the wing be a correct conjecture, or observation, instead of a "sailor's yarn," as sage and conceited, but often mistaken, professors of "physical science" would have us regard it?
No doubt this would have been the very course of conduct for the flying-fish to have pursued; and no doubt it was on the eve of adopting it, when, all at once, the long, shadowy wings and outstretched neck of the frigate-bird were seen outlined above. The sight was sufficient to keep the fish under water a while longer, but only a very little while.
"It is a frigate-bird watching for its prey; and before long we shall see it pounce down to the surface of the ocean if it observes anything to pick up, though it is a good many hundred feet above our heads just now." "See! see! what are those curious creatures which have just come out of the water? Why, they have wings! Can they be birds?" she exclaimed.
"Though I cannot, I must confess, help admiring the beauty of the frigate-bird, robber as he is, my sympathy is all with the flying-fish," said Alice. "They are certainly to be pitied," said the mate; "for they have enemies in the water and out of it. Several of those we saw just now are by this time down the throats of the albicores or bonitoes, which are following them.
Beneath, and apparently clutching it by the leg, was a fish whose shape, size, and sheen of azure hue proclaimed it an albacore, no doubt, the one that simultaneously with the bird itself had been balked in the pursuit of the flying-fish. So far the detention of the frigate-bird upon the surface of the sea was explained; but not sufficiently. There was still cause for conjecture.
In such cases, and many others could be given, habits have changed without a corresponding change of structure. The webbed feet of the upland goose may be said to have become rudimentary in function, though not in structure. In the frigate-bird, the deeply-scooped membrane between the toes shows that structure has begun to change.
Still another may be pointed out: in the innermost toe or pollex, being turned outwards, as if intended for perching, which the frigate-bird actually does when it visits the shore, often making its nest upon trees, and roosting among the branches.
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