t
being white and the beak red. Nothing could be more graceful than the
way it hovered above the ship in beautiful undulations, or the rapidity
with which it darted on its prey. Alice and Walter stood admiring it.

"It is a determined pirate," observed the mate. "When it cannot catch
fish for itself, it watches for the gannets and sea-swallows after they
have been out fishing all day, and darting down upon them, compels them
in their fright to throw some of their prey out of their crops, when it
is caught by the plunderer before it reaches the water. The gannets are
such gluttons, they generally fly home so full of fish that they are
unable to close their beaks. If the gannet does not let some of the
fish fall, the frigate-bird darts rapidly down and strikes it on the
back of the head; on which it never fails to give up its prey to the
marauder."

"Though I cannot, I must confess, help admiring the beauty of the
frigate-bird, robber as he is, my sympathy is all with the flying-fish,"
said Alice.

"They are certainly to be pitied," said the mate; "for they have enemies
in the water and out of it. Several of those we saw just now are by
this time down the throats of the albicores or bonitoes, which are
following them. To try to escape from their foes, they rise out of the
water, and fly fifty yards or more, till, their wings becoming dry, they
cannot longer support themselves, when they fall back again into the
sea, if they are not in the meantime picked up by a frigate-bird or some
other winged enemy. I have known a dozen or more fly into a boat, or
even on to the deck of a ship; and very delicate they are when cooked,
though hungry people are glad enough to eat them raw."

Sometimes at night Alice came on deck, when the stars were shining
brightly and the ship was bounding over the waves, to watch the foam as
it was dashed from off the bows to pass hissing by, covered with sparks
of phosphorescent light, while the summits of the dark waves in every
direction shone with the utmost brilliancy. The strange light, her
father told her, was produced by countless millions of minute creatures,
or, as some supposed, by decomposed animal matter. She delighted most,
however, in going on deck on a calm night, when the moonbeams cast their
soft light upon the ocean, and the ship seemed to be gliding across a
sea of burnished silver. Walter now regularly took his watch, and never
failed to call her when he knew she wou