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Updated: May 6, 2025
There is a wonderful bird which sailors have seen a thousand miles from land. It is called the Frigate-bird, and has never been known to rest on the sea; it lives upon sea-creatures, but makes its nest on shore.
This was the query to which neither sailor nor sea-cook could give a reply, either with positive truth or probable conjecture. For full ten minutes it remained unanswered; that is, ten minutes after the sword-fish adventure had ended, and twenty from the time the frigate-bird had been seen to swoop at the flying-fish.
In a word, it captures its prey in the air; and this commonly consists in the various species of flying-fish, and also the loligo, or "flying squids." When these are forced out of their own proper element to seek safety in the air, the frigate-bird, ready to pounce down from aloft, clutches them before they can get back into the equally unsafe element out of which they have sprung.
The frigate-bird, a true sea-hawk, sea-eagle, it may be called, since its bold, noble qualities entitle it to the name, makes its excursions so far from the shore that it is not unfrequently seen in the very middle of the Atlantic. Now, this is the most curious circumstance in its history, and one that has hitherto perplexed ornithologists.
In nearly every tree were to be seen the rude nests of the frigate-bird, built of a few coarse sticks; and numbers of the birds themselves, with their singular blood-red pouches inflated to the utmost extent, were flying in from the sea.
An Italian describes the fregata as a little vessel with oars, but whence that name is derived is uncertain. A species of swift-flying sea-gull is called by the French a fregate. We have also the frigate-bird; but the name is generally supposed to be derived from the ship, which, however, may not really be the case.
To try to escape from their foes, they rise out of the water, and fly fifty yards or more, till, their wings becoming dry, they cannot longer support themselves, when they fall back again into the sea, if they are not in the meantime picked up by a frigate-bird or some other winged enemy.
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