Booby, the English name for a genus of pe-lecanidce, the dysporus of Illiger, morns of Vieillot, lefou of the French; separated from the true pelicans by Brisson, under the name of sula. The term booby is applied by navigators to that species (sula fusca, Briss.) which inhabits the desolate islands and coasts of warm climates in almost every part of the globe. The old voyagers have left accounts perfectly consentaneous concerning the stupidity of these birds, and testify to the passive immobility with which they sit in rows, two and two, along the shores, and suffer themselves to be beaten to death with clubs, attempting only a weak defence by pecking at their aggressors, and never making so much as an effort to take wing. Dampier says that in the Alacrane islands, on the coast of Yucatan, the crowds of these birds were so great that he could not pass their haunts without being inconvenienced by their pecking. He also states that he succeeded in making some fly away by the blows which he bestowed on them; but the greater part remained in spite of all his efforts to compel them to take flight.

The boobies seldom swim and never dive, but take fish by darting down from on high, with unerring aim, upon such kinds as swim near the surface, and instantly rising again into the air with their booty. In the performance of this exploit they are often harassed and persecuted by the frigate birds and albatrosses, which give chase to them the instant they see them rising laden with their prey, and force them to disgorge it, when they themselves appropriate the fish. Recognizing the similar habit of the whiteheaded eagle toward the osprey, of the great arctic gull toward the fishing terns, and of other predatory birds toward their more industrious and peaceful congeners, there is no reason for doubting the truth of this story. They walk with extreme difficulty, and while at rest on land stand nearly erect, propped, like the penguins, on the stiff feathers of the tail. The omission of all efforts for self-pres-I ervation by this bird is to be attributed not i to stupidity, but to inability to get away, the extreme length of its wings and comparative shortness of its legs rendering it difficult for the bird to rise at all from a level surface, and almost impossible to do so in a hurry.

They ordinarily lay their eggs, each bird two or three, in rude nests on ledges of rock covered with herbage; but Dampier states that in the isle of Aves they build nests in trees, though they have been always observed in other places to nest on the ground.