On looking at him closely, you perceive that he has no feet. Or at all events, feet which being palmate and exceedingly short, can neither walk nor perch. With a formidable beak, he has not the talons of a true eagle of the sea. A pseudo-eagle, and superior to the true in his daring as in his powers of flight, he has not, however, his strength, his invincible grasp. He strikes and slays: can he seize?
Thence arises his life of uncertainty and hazard—the life of a corsair and a pirate rather than of a mariner—and the fixed inquiry ever legible on his countenance: "Shall I feed? Shall I have wherewithal to nourish my little ones this evening?"
The immense and superb apparatus of his wings becomes on land a danger and an embarrassment. To raise himself he needs a strong wind and a lofty station, a promontory, a rock. Surprised on a sandy level, on the banks, the low reefs where he sometimes halts, the frigate-bird is defenceless; in vain he threatens, he strikes, for a blow from a stick will overcome him.
At sea, those vast wings, of such admirable utility in ascent, are ill-fitted for skimming the surface of the water. When wetted, they may over-weight and sink him. And thereupon, woe to the bird! He belongs to the fishes, he nourishes the mean tribes on which he had relied for his own behoof; the game eats the hunter, the ensnarer is ensnared.
And yet, what shall he do? His food lies in the waters. He is ever compelled to draw near them, to return to them, to skim incessantly the hateful and prolific sea which threatens to engulf him.
Thus, then, this being so well-armed, winged, superior to all others in power of flight and vision as in daring, leads but a trembling and precarious life. He would die of hunger had he not the industry to create for himself a purveyor, whom he cheats of his food. His ignoble resource, alas, is to attack a dull and timorous bird, the noddy, famous as a fisher. The frigate-bird, which is of no larger dimensions, pursues him, strikes him on the neck with his beak, and constrains him to yield up his prey. All these incidents transpire in the air; before the fish can fall, he catches it on its passage.
If this resource fail, he does not shrink from attacking man. "On landing at Ascension Island," says a traveller, "we were assailed by some frigate-birds. One tried to snatch a fish out of my very hand. Others alighted on the copper where the meat was being cooked to carry it off, without taking any notice of the sailors who were around it."
Dampier saw some of these birds, sick, aged, or crippled, perched upon the rocks which seemed their sanatorium, levying contributions upon the young noddies, their vassals, and nourishing themselves on the results of their fishing. But in the vigour of their prime they do not rest on earth; living like the clouds, constantly floating on their vast wings from one world to the other, patiently awaiting their fortune, and piercing the infinite heaven—the infinite waters—with implacable glance.