BOOBY, Any of various of the lesser and more tropical species of gannets (genus Sula ). The name is said by Newton (Dictionary of Birds, London, 1896, p. 48) to be a corruption of the Portuguese bobo, a fool, derived from the Latin balbus, stuttering or inarticulate; and to have been "applied, most likely by our [British] seamen, originally, to certain birds from their stupidity in alighting upon ships and allowing themselves to be taken easily by the hand." in stances of which have been mentioned in many accounts of early voyages. There is no reason to suppose that these birds are any more stupid than other sea-fowl little accustomed to man. All boobies differ from gannets in having the whole lower jaw, chin, and throat naked. Several species are known, one confined to the Peruvian coast, and the others ranging throughout the \ramier seas of the whole world, and coming north on American shores to Georgia and Lower California. Their habits are those of the gannet
(q.v.), with the important exception that they make their nests, as a rule, on bushes and trees instead of on rocks. The site is always near the seashore. It is a rude platform of sticks and dry seaweed, and contains one or two eggs, "chalk white superficially, but beneath the calcareous crust pale greenish-blue." The commonest, and typical species is Sulu sins, which is dark sooty brown (often tawny), with the naked skin of the face and throat yellowish and the feet dull-green. The blue-faced booby (Sulu cyanops) is white, with wings and tail sooty-brown, the naked skin about the face and throat bluish, and the foot reddish. The red-footed booby (Nuba piscator) is yellowish-white, with the wing-quills slate colored and the feet red.