I have never seen the Frigate fishing; but have frequently found
flying-fish in its stomach half digested.[133] Nor have I ever seen
it attack the Booby, to make it disgorge, though the fishermen of
Jamaica are familiar with this habit. Dr. Chamberlaine, who apparently
describes from observation, says of the Frigate, “He is almost always
a constant attendant upon our fishermen, when pursuing their vocation
on the sand-banks in Kingston Harbour, or near the Palisados. Over
their heads it takes its aerial stand, and watches their motions with
a patience and perseverance the most exemplary. It is upon these
occasions that the Pelicans, the Gulls, and other sea-birds become its
associates and companions. These are also found watching with equal
eagerness and anxiety the issue of the fishermen’s progress, attracted
to the spot by the sea of living objects immediately beneath them.
[133] An intelligent fisherman, who is in the habit of trading
about the coast, and to Cuba, asserts that he has often seen the
Frigates fishing far out at sea; such large fishes as Bonito,
that leap out of water, being their prey; which they catch with
the foot, plunging down on them, and then mounting, deliver the
booty to the mouth like a Parrot. I feel it right to repeat this
statement, though I think it improbable, from the weakness of the
foot. He adds that they breed in great numbers on the Pedro Kays,
laying on the bare rocks.
“And then it is, when these men are making their last haul, and the
finny tribe are fluttering and panting for life, that this voracious
bird exhibits his fierce and pugnacious propensities. His hungry
companions have scarcely secured their prey by the side of the
fishermen’s canoes, when with the lightning’s dart, they are pounced
upon with such violence, that, to escape its rapacious assaults, they
readily in turn yield their hard-earned booty to this formidable
opponent. The lightness of its trunk, the short tarsi, and vast
spread of wing, together with its long, slender, and forked tail, all
conspire to give him a superiority over his tribe, not only in length
and rapidity of flight, but also in the power of maintaining itself on
outspread pinions in the regions of his aerial habitation amidst the
clouds; where, at times, so lofty are its soarings, its figure becomes
almost invisible to the spectator in this nether world.” (Jamaica Alm.
1843, p. 87.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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