. Three voyages of a naturalist : being an account of many little-known islands in three oceans visited by the "Valhalla" . ngfocussing cloth. All seemed easy, but before Icould expose a plate I was surrounded by a flutter-ing croaking swarm of birds, and I had to keepdriving them off as they hovered in front of mycamera. The number of these birds on South Trinidadis incalculable. The entire plumage is of an ivorywhiteness, and they flash in the sunlight likeflakes of snow. From the sea-shore to the extremesummit of the island they were sitting in swarmson every rock and dead tree, whil
. Three voyages of a naturalist : being an account of many little-known islands in three oceans visited by the "Valhalla" . ngfocussing cloth. All seemed easy, but before Icould expose a plate I was surrounded by a flutter-ing croaking swarm of birds, and I had to keepdriving them off as they hovered in front of mycamera. The number of these birds on South Trinidadis incalculable. The entire plumage is of an ivorywhiteness, and they flash in the sunlight likeflakes of snow. From the sea-shore to the extremesummit of the island they were sitting in swarmson every rock and dead tree, while the air seemedfull of them. After leaving Trinidad, too, whilesteaming southward, we passed flock after flock. The eggs are most handsome. About the sizeof a bantams, and large for the bird, they areheavily blotched and streaked with yellowish olive-brown on a somewhat lighter ground colour. We found young birds of all ages. They arecovered with a grey down at first, but older birdshave their white feathers suffused with a dirtyyellow colour. On leaving the nest they haveblack quills to the wings and tail-feathers, but the. Q O CO fc O HO< Ph z x K CO 00 O< TAMENESS OF THE BIRDS 47 plumage of the adult is entirely white, with theexception of a narrow ring of black feathers en-circling the eye. The bill, as I have already noted,is jet black, while the feet are pale sea-blue, thewebs joining the toes being milky white. Bothold and young have the middle toe furnishedwith a strong and sharp claw, which is speciallyuseful to the young bird when it is in danger offalling from the nesting place. Several pairs of gannets*, a smaller bird thanour well-known solan goose, but somewhat simi-liarly coloured when adult, were found sittingon their nests or tending their young. The nestswere in every case a collection of sticks placedin a suitable position on the fallen trees. We foundno eggs, but the young were in all stages of newly-hatched bird is covered with purewhite d
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworl
