es 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.

CHAPTER FORTY NINE.

BETWEEN TWO TYRANTS.

The two birds which had attracted the attention of the _Catamaran's_
crew were seen suddenly to abandon their fixed poise in the air, and
commence wheeling in circles, or rather in spiral lines that gradually
descended towards the surface of the sea.

In a short while they were so low that the scarlet pouch under the
throat of the male was easily recognisable, swollen out like a goitre;
while the elegant conformation of the birds, with their long,
scimitar-shaped wings, and slender forked tails, was sharply defined
against the blue background of the sky.

The albacores no longer took any notice of the baited