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The name Booby was said by Professor Skeat in
his 19th Century Etymological Dictionary to be derived from the Spanish
or Portuguese bobo - a fool, and that from the Latin balbus-stuttering
or inarticulate, a name applied, most likely by seamen originally, to certain
birds from their stupidity in alighting upon ships and allowing themselves
to be easily taken by the hand. Thus Purchas in his account of Davis's
Second Voyage to India, in 1604-5, tells (Pilgrimes, I. bk. iii. p. 132)
of "fowles called Pashara boues " - which correctly spelt would be Paxaros
bobos - at the island of Fernando Norhona.
The Boobies (genus sula and Papasula, in the Sulidae
family) are closely related to the GANNET (genus Morus in the Sulidae family), although the Booby differs in having no
median stripe of bare skin down the front of the throat. Also unlike
the gannett, the booby almost invariably breeds upon trees instead of rocks,
and is an inhabitant of warmer climates. One of them, the Masked Booby
- also known as the Blue faced Booby - Sula dactylatra, when
adult has much of the aspect of a Gannet, but the Red Footed Booby,
which is the smallest of the boobies standing around 70 centimeters in
height, is readily distinguishable by its red legs. Similarly, the
Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) can be distinguished by its upper
plumage and neck of deep brown. These three are widely distributed within
the tropics, and are in some places exceedingly abundant. Another species,
the Peruvian Booby (Sula variegata), which seems to preserve throughout
its life the spotted suit characteristic of the immature Northern Gannet
(Sula bassana), has a much more limited range, being as yet only known
from the coast of Peru, where it is one of the birds which contribute to
the formation of guano.
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