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Updated: June 3, 2025
Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer. The booby lays her eggs on the bare rock; but the tern makes a very simple nest with seaweed. By the side of many of these nests a small flying-fish was placed; which I suppose, had been brought by the male bird for its partner.
The sea-hawks, wheeling above both pursuers and pursued, had been watching their opportunity; and as the pretty creatures made their appearance above water, both the birds swooped straight down among the prinkling cohort, each selecting a victim. Both made a successful swoop; for they were observed to turn and fly with a slant upwards, each with a flying-fish in its beak.
I could not help thinking of your remark, Mrs Clagget, to me a short time ago, and wished that a covey of flying-fish would come on board. Some of the men had begun to scrape the broken pieces of the oar, and chew the wood to stop the gnawing of hunger. Another night, we all felt, would be very trying.
This isn't the first time that I've been in a boat out in mid-ocean, without a drop of water, and with nothing to eat except maybe a flying-fish and a brace of noddies we caught, and a dead bird we picked up, till we came across a whale floating, and, fed on the blubber for a week or more, though we had to hold our noses as we put it into our mouths, till we were at length picked up.
The fishing side is on the north, or lee, shore, where the water is very deep right off the rocks. There are kelp-beds along the shore, and the combination of deep water, kelp, and small fish is what holds the swordfish there in August and September. I have seen acres of flying-fish in the air at once, and great swarms of yellowtail, basking on the surface.
Swallowing the fish, the bird rapidly ascended, to be ready for another pounce on its prey. The flying-fish had evidently other enemies below the surface, for soon afterwards they were seen to rise at a short distance ahead; and once more the bird, descending with the same rapid flight as before, seized another, which it bore off. "Poor fish! how cruel of the bird to eat them up," cried Alice.
But such was the marvellous celerity of their movements, that though they came within easy striking distance, all the hostile demonstrations of Max and Morton proved futile. The Flying-fish which had been taken, were divided and apportioned with scrupulous exactness, and devoured with very little ceremony.
"That is because you are one woman in a thousand." "No; I simply have a mind of my own, and often prefer to be guided by it. I am not a sheep." Silence. The lap-lap of the water, the long slow rise and fall, and the dartling flying-fish apparently claimed their attention. But Warrington saw nothing save the danger, the danger to himself and to her.
Some of the guests did not like the sauce, but took their small fish by the tail, dripping with salt water, and ate it as one might eat celery, bones, and all. With the main course were served dried squid and porpoise, and fresh flying-fish and bonito and shrimp. The feast was complete with mangoes, oranges, and pineapples, also bananas ripened in the expeditious way of the Marquesas.
While the doctor was eagerly hunting about for specimens of natural history, we were amused by watching the proceedings of some of the few inhabitants of the rock. By the side of several of the noddies' nests we saw a dead flying-fish, evidently deposited there by the male bird.
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