238 RAiMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



salmon-tinted bird, measuring 108 inches from tip to tip. 

 It was shot on the 9th of April. The tarsus was 5^ inches, 

 carpus 26|. culmen 18, length 59. Legs yellow, eye brownish 

 red — not so bright red as in the examples at the Zoological 

 gardens. The zvhole body, wings included, was covered with 

 large air-cells. 



Pelicans do very well in confinement, and I was told at Men- 

 zaleh that they could be caught alive more easily than shot. 



Hasselquist says, " The inhabitants of Damietta make a 

 vessel out of the upper part of the beak, with which they 

 bale the water out of their boats." I should have thought 

 the lower part more adapted for the purpose. 



Before leaving Egypt I purchased a young Pelican which 

 had been shot at Suez. It is dark brown all over, and 

 appears to me to be hardly full grown. The bill is 14J, 

 and the wing 26 inches. 



■)f2i3. Pclicanus minor, Rupp. ; P. uiitratus, Licht. 



On the 15th of April a pair of Pelicans were discovered 

 sitting upon a sandbank near Thebes, and Mr. Buxton shot 

 the smaller of the pair. It measured — length 48 inches, 

 culmen 12, wing from carpus 26, tarsus 5, expanse 104. It 

 was pure white in colour without any tinge of roseate, but 

 it had the usual yellow feathers on the breast, and two of 

 the secondary quills were white. The crest was nearly four 

 inches long. The living specimen of P. minor in the 

 Zoological Gardens has at present no crest (September, 

 1875). The one we got had the usual air-cells over the 

 whole body, and in its pouch a parasitical worm. 



214. Dalmatian Pelican, Pelicanus crispus, Bruch. ; 

 " Bagah." 



Possibly some of the Pelicans we saw at Damietta were 



