246 BIRDS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO MAN. 



THE CORMORANTS AND PELICANS. 



The Cormorants are large birds, principally maritime yet 

 often straying into the interior, vvhich are represented by dif- 

 ferent species in every temperate quarter of the globe. They 

 are proverbial fishers. In China they are domesticated and 

 trained to fish for their masters, being prevented from swal- 

 lowing their game by a close-fitting ring put about their necks. 

 The common cormorant is found along the Atlantic coast 

 down to the Middle States in winter. The double-crested 

 cormorant is the only one diffused throughout the country. 

 The Mexican cormorant is a tropical species that occasionally 

 makes its way up the Mississippi Valley. They all agree in 

 living exclusively upon fish, and, as they are not sufficiently 

 abundant to interfere with human interests in that line, may 

 be regarded as of no economic account in this country. 



The pelicans are large, cumbersome birds, remarkable for 

 a capacious pouch of extensible skin between their lower 

 jaws. They are common in temperate regions, feeding 

 mostly on fish and other animals, yet not averse to insects. 

 The White Pelican is common in the Southern States, rang- 

 ing w^ell u}) the Mississippi Valley. It feeds by scooping up 

 its prey as it swims on the water, letting the water run out at 

 the sides of its mouth, and swallowing the luckless creatures 

 left witliin. It walks readily and is able to pick up more or 

 less food on shore. Five Nebraska birds that came into the 

 hands of Aughey had fed as follows : One had eaten a frog ; 

 all had eaten fish, crawfish, and insects. None had taken less 

 than twenty-one insects. Forty-one locusts were found in 

 one stomach and forty-seven in another. A stomach opened 

 by Audubon was found to contain about a hundred small 

 worms. 



The Brown Pelican, a more southerly bird, confined to the 

 coast, feeds wholly on fish taken at a flying plunge, after the 

 manner of a gannet. 



