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Show 294 MR. J. J. LISTER ON THE [Apr. 21, as one approached. It was most amusing to watch the small fluffy young one beside the parent bird joining in and adding its weak notes of defiance to hers. She certainly managed to appear very formidable with her feathers ruffled and powerful yellow bill half open ready for attack, the pupil contracted to a speck in the middle of the bright yellow iris, which gleamed out from the bare dark grey skin surrounding it. The feet are of a brownish-grey colour. SULA LEUCOGASTER (Bodd.). These were less numerous than the White Gannet. The bill is rather less powerful, and is greenish blue, becoming bluer at the base. The iris is grey and the feet a delicate pale green. The young bird has the blue bill and grey iris of the adult, but the feet are pale red. The nest is built of sticks and placed on the bushes like those of the following species. SULA PISCATRIX (Linn.). These birds built their nests on the Sida bushes a few feet from the ground. They were not in colonies but scattered here and there, and I noticed some in the middle of the Frigate-bird colonies, where they lived apparently in perfect peace with their neighbours, though it is one of the common sights to see the Frigate-birds chasing them out at sea to make them hand over the fish they have caught. The bird has a curiously incomplete look, the feathers not sitting close and smooth as in its allies, and the colours, though bright, appear to be in indifferent taste. The bill is greyish blue, and the bare skin which extends over the lores and behind the eye is bright blue. At the base of both upper and lower mandible is a band of pink gradually blending with the colours behind. The skin between the rami of the mandible and on the ' chin ' is dark slate. The feet are of a dark pink, almost magenta. The eggs of the three species have the pale blue ground-colour almost hidden by the chalky-white covering. Those of & cyanops are much larger than the others. M y specimens vary in weight as follows:- S. cyanops 119 to 144 grs. S. leucogaster 80 to 88 „ S. piscatrix 69 to 83 „ At Canton Island a clump of Tourneforlia trees was habitually used by these birds (S. piscatrix) as a roosting and preening place. Among the pieces of down which were sticking to the bare branches, having been preened out of the feathers, was found one entangled with a seed of one of the trailing plants of the island (Boerhaavia tetrandra, Forst.), which is beset with glandular hairs. Such an incident indicates a method by which seeds may be distributed from island to island by birds. |