The frigate-bird (_Pelicanus aquila_), which had thus become the subject
of conversation on board the _Catamaran_, is in many respects very
different from other ocean-birds. Although generally classed with the
pelicans, it bears but a very slight resemblance to any species of these
misshapen, unwieldy, goose-like creatures.
It differs from most other birds frequenting the sea in the fact of its
feet being but slightly webbed, and its claws being _talons_, like those
of hawks or eagles.
Otherwise, also, does it resemble these last birds,--so much that the
sailors, noting the resemblance, indifferently call it "sea-hawk,"
"man-of-war hawk," and "man-of-war eagle." The last appellation,
however, is sometimes given to the great wandering albatross (_Diomedea
exulans_).
The male frigate-bird is jet black all over the body; having a red bill,
very long, vertically flattened, and with the mandibles abruptly hooked
downwards at the point. The female differs in colour: being sooty black
above, and having a large white disc on the abdomen.
The legs are short in proportion to the bulk of the bird; the toes, as
already stated, being furnished with talons,--the middle one scaly, and
notched underneath; while the legs are feathered to the feet, showing
another point of affinity with predatory birds of the land. 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.
In fact, this creature may be regarded as a sort of connecting link
between the birds of prey who make their home on the dry land, and the
web-footed birds that equally lead a predatory life upon the sea.
Perhaps it continues the chain begun by the ospreys and sea-eagles, who
take most of their food out of the water, but do not stray far from the
shore in search of it.
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. Since
its feet are not provided with the "web," it cannot swim a stroke; nor
has it ever been seen to alight on the water for the purpose of taking
rest. It is not likely that it can settle on the wave,--the
conformation of its feet and body making this an impossibility.
How, then, does it find rest for its tired wings? This is the question
to which an answer is not easily given.
There is a belief, as Ben alleged, that it returns every night to roost
upon the land; but when it is considered that to reach its roost would
often require a flight of a thousand miles,--to say nothing of the
return journey to its fishing-ground,--the statement at once loses all
_vrai-semblance_, Many sailors say that it goes to sleep suspended aloft
in the air, and so high up as to be sometimes invisible. This was the
belief of Snowball.
Now, this belief, or conjecture, or whatever you may--term it, on the
part of Jack tar, though sneered at as impossible, and even scoffed at
as ridiculous, may, after all, not be so very far beyond the truth.
Jack has told some rare tales in his time,--"yarns" that appear to be
"spun" out of his fancy, quite as much as this one,--which, after having
run the gauntlet of philosophic ridicule on the part of closet
naturalists, have in the long run turned out to be true! Has not his
story of the "King of the Cannibal Islands,"--Hokee-pokee-winkee-wum,
with his fifty wives as black as "sut," and all his belongings, just as
Jack described them,--actually "turned up" in reality, in the person of
Thakombau and a long line of similar monsters inhabiting the Fiji
Islands?
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?
Such professors as are at this moment, in almost every newspaper in the
country,--scientific journals among the number,--abusing and ridiculing
the poor farmer for destroying the birds that destroy his grain; and
telling him, if he were to let the birds alone, they would eat the
insects that commit far greater devastation on his precious _cerealia_!
Conceited theorists! it has never occurred to them, that the victims of
the farmer's fowling-piece--_the birds that eat corn--would not touch an
insect if they were starving_! The farmer does not make war on the
insect-eating birds. Rarely, or never, does he expend powder and shot
on the swallow, the wagtail, the tomtit, the starling, the thrush, the
blackbird, the wren, the robin, or any of the grub and fly-feeders. His
"game" are the buntings and _Fringillidae_,--the larks, linnets,
finches, barley-birds, yellowhammers, and house sparrows, that form the
great flocks afflicting him both in seed-time and harvest; and none of
which (excepting, perhaps, the last-mentioned gentry, who are at times
slightly inclined towards a wormy diet) would touch an insect, even with
the tips of their bills. Ha! ye scribblers of closet conceits! you have
been sneering at "Chaw-bacon" long enough. He may turn and scoff at
you; for, in very truth, the boot (of ignorance) is upon the other leg!
Let us make sure then, lest Jack's theory regarding the lumbers of the
sea-hawk be not mythical in the mirror of our own incredulity.
That the bird can take rest in the air is perfectly certain. It may be
seen--as the crew of the _Catamaran_ saw it--suspended on outspread
wing, without any perceptible motion except in its tail; the long,
forked feathers of which could be observed opening and closing at
intervals; according to the sailor's simile, like the blades of a pair
of scissors. But this motion might be merely muscular, and compatible
with a state of slumber or unconscious repose. At all events, the bird
has been seen to keep its place in the air for many minutes at a time,
with no other motion observable than that of the long and
gracefully-forking feathers of its tail.
A fish sleeps suspended in the water without any apparent effort. Why
not certain birds in the air, whose body is many times lighter than that
of a fish, and whose skeleton is constructed with air vessels to buoy
them up into the azure fields of the sky? The sea-hawk may seldom
require what is ordinarily termed rest. Its smooth, graceful flight
upon wings, which, though slender, are of immense length,--often often
feet spread,--shows that it is, perhaps, as much at ease in the air as
if perched upon the bough of a tree; and it is certain that its claws
never clasp branch, nor do its feet find rest on any other object, for
weeks and months together.
It is true that while fishing near the shore it usually retires to roost
at night; but afar over the ocean it keeps all night upon the wing. It
does not, like many other ocean-birds,--as the booby, one of its own
genus,--seek rest upon the spars of ships, though it often hovers above
the mastheads of sailing vessels, as if taking delight in this
situation, and not unfrequently seizes in its beak, and tearing away the
pieces of coloured cloth fixed upon the vane.
A curious anecdote is told of a frigate-bird taken while thus
occupied,--its captor being a man who had swarmed up to the masthead and
seized it in his hand. As this individual chanced to be a landsman,
serving temporarily on board the ship, and being remarkably tall and
slender, the crew of the vessel would never have it otherwise, than that
the bird, accustomed only to the figure of a sailor, had mistaken its
captor for a spare spar, and thus fallen a victim to its want of
discernment!
Strictly speaking, the frigate-bird does not _fish_, like other
predatory birds of the ocean. As it cannot either dive or swim, of
course it cannot take fish out of the water. How, then, does it exist?
Where finds it the food necessary to sustain existence? 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.
Besides the flying-fish, it preys upon those that have the habit of
leaping above the surface, and also others that have been already
captured by boobies, terns, gulls, and tropic birds, all of which can
both swim and dive.
These the frigate-bird remorselessly robs of their legitimate prize,--
first compelling them to relinquish it in the air, and then adroitly
seizing it before it gets back to the water.
The storm is the season of plenty to this singular bird of prey; as then
it can capture many kinds of fish upon the surface of the waves. It is
during those times when the sea is tranquil or perfectly calm, that it
resorts to the other method,--of forcing the fishing-birds to yield up
their prey, often even to disgorge, after having swallowed it!
Its wondrous powers of flight not only enable it to seize with certainty
the morsel thus rejected, but so confident is it of its ability in the
performance of this feat, that, if a fish chance to be awkwardly caught
in its beak, it will fearlessly fling it into the air, and, darting
after, grasp it again and again, until it gets the mouthful in a
convenient position for being gulped down its own greedy throat.