frigate-bird do 'idout sleep? You know berry well he not got de power
to swim,--him feet only half web. He no more sit on de water dan a
guinea-fowl, or a ole hen ob de dunghill. As for him go 'sleep on de
sea, it no more possyble dan for you or me, Massa Ben."

"Well, Snowy," slowly responded the sailor, rather pushed for a reply,
"I'm willin' to acknowledge all that. It look like the truth, an' it
don't,--both at the same time. I can't understan' how a bird can go to
sleep up in the air, no more'n I could hang my old tarpaulin' hat on the
corner o' a cloud. Same time I acknowledge that I'm puzzled to make out
how them thar frigates can take thar rest. The only explanation I can
think o' is, that every night they fly back to the shore, an' turns in
thar."

"Whoogh! Massa Brace, you knows better dan dat. I'se heerd say dat de
frigate-bird nebber am seed more'n a hunder league from de shore. Dam!
Dis nigga hab seed dat same ole cock five time dat distance from land,--
in de middle ob de wide Atlantic, whar we sees 'um now. Wish it was
true he nebber 'tray more dan hunder knots from de land; we might hab
some chance reach it den. Hunder league! Golly! more'n twice dat
length we am from land; and dere 's dem long-wing birds hov'rin' 'bove
our heads, an sleepin' as tranquil as ebber dis nigga did in de caboose
ob de ole _Pandora_."

Ben made no reply. Whether the reasoning of the Coromantee was correct
or only sophistical, the facts were the same. Two forms were in the
sky, outlined against the back ground of cerulean blue. Though distant,
and apparently motionless, they were easily distinguishable as living
things,--as birds,--and of a kind so peculiar, that the eye of the rude
African, and even that of the almost equally rude Saxon, could
distinguish the species.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

THE FRIGATE-BIRD.

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, i