Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/83

 I was very much perplexed, to form a atisfactory conjecture, how the mall birds, which appeared to remain in one pot, upported themelves without water; but the party on their return informed me, that, having exhauted all their water, and repoing beneath a prickly pear-tree, almot choaked with thirt, they oberved an old bird in the act of upplying three young ones with drink, by queezing the berry of a tree into their mouths. It was about the ize of a pea, and contained a watery juice, of an acid, but not unpleaant, tate. The bark of the tree, produces a coniderable quantity of moiture, and, on being eaten, allays the thirt. In dry eaons, the land tortoie is een to gnaw and uck it. The leaf of this tree, is like that of the bay tree, the fruit grows like cherries, whilt the juice of the bark dies the fleh a deep purple, and emits a grateful odor: a quality in common with the greater part of the trees and plants on this iland; though it is oon lot, when the branches are eparated from the trunks, or tems. The leaves of thee trees alo aborb the copious dews, which fall during the night, but in larger quantities at the full and change of the moon; the birds then pierce them with their bills, for the moiture they retain, and which, I believe, they alo procure from the various plants and ever-greens. But when the dews fail in the ummer eaon, thouands of thee creatures perih; for, on our return hither, we found great numbers dead in