Sometimes there are as many as a hundred in our troop and seventy or eighty in theirs. We travel on foot, picking up food as we go, till we meet a man with a gun, or come to a wide river. Then we have to fly. In a flock? Oh, yes. We choose some high place from which to get a good start. There we all stay, sometimes a day or two, strutting about and talking big. It is _gobble, gobble gobble_, from morning till night. Just like one of your conventions, you know. After awhile our leader gives the signal and off we all fly to the opposite shore. Did you ever see one of our nests? No? Well, they are not easily seen, though they are made on the ground. You see, we are cunning and build them among tall, thick weeds and tangled briars. I hope, if you ever come across one, you will not touch it, because my mate would never return to it again, if you did. What do we eat? Berries, fruit and grasses, beetles, tadpoles, frogs and lizards. In fact anything we consider good. THE YELLOW-BILLED TROPIC BIRD. In appearance this bird resembles a large Tern (see Vol. I, page 103), and its habits are similar to those of the Terns. Inter-tropical, it is of a wandering disposition, breeding on the islands of mid-ocean thousands of miles apart. It is noted for its elegant, airy, and long-protracted flight. Davie says that on Bourbon, Mauritius and other islands east and south of Madagascar it breeds in the crevices of the rocks of inaccessible cliffs, and in hollow trees. In the Bermuda Islands it nests about the first of May in holes in high rocky places along the shores. Here its favorite resorts are the small islands of Great Sound, Castle Harbor, and Harrington Sound. The Phaeton, as it is felicitously called, nests in the Bahamas in holes in the perpendicular faces of cliffs and on the flat surfaces of rocks. A single egg is laid, which has a ground-color of purplish brownish white, covered in some specimens almost over the entire surface with fine reddish chocolate-colored spots. These species compose the small but distinct family of tropic birds and are found throughout the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Long journeys are made by them across the open sea, their flight when emigrating being strong, rapid, and direct, and immense distances are covered by them as they course undismayed by wind or storm. In feeding, Chapman says, they course over the water, beating back and forth at a height of about forty feet, and their long willowy tail-feathers add greatly to the grace and beauty of their appearance when on the wing. They are of rare and probably accidental occurrence on our coasts. The Songs of Nature never cease, Her players sue not for release In nearer fields, on hills afar, Attendant her musicians are: From water brook or forest tree, For aye comes gentle melody, The very air is music blent-- An universal instrument. --JOHN VANCE CHENEY.