WATER BIRDS. 69 



1903 (Barrows); one killed at Dorr, Allegan county, September 1892 

 (0. & 0. XVII, 143); one killed at Tecumseh, Lenawee county in 1882 

 (L. W. Watkins); one specimen in Agricultural College ^luseum without 

 data, perhaps the specimen recorded by Cook (page 31) as from Berrien 

 county; two killed in Hillsdale county and mounted for a storekeeper 

 at Hillsdale (Hankinson); two shot in St. Joseph county and now in the 

 collection of Adolph Beerstecker (Gibbs, list of 1879); one killed near 

 Port Huron about September 26, 1877 (F. & S.); one seen and shot at on 

 Keweenaw Point "a few years since" (Kneeland, 1856-57); two shot 

 October 31, 1905, by Ira J. Boughton, on Indian Lake, near Pentoga, 

 Iron county. 



The nest is bulky and placed on the ground, being "only a heap of earth 

 and gravel raked into a pile about six or eight inches high and about twenty 

 inches broad on the top, which is only very slightly hollowed" (Ridgway). 

 The eggs are two or three, white chalky, and more or less stained. They 

 average. 3.34 by 2.22 inches. The period of incubation is stated by Bendire 

 to be about twenty-nine days; at least that was all the time taken by a 

 hen to hatch pelican eggs placed under her. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



The largest of our water birds except the swans, and recognizable by its black and white 

 plumage, its huge bill, a foot or more long, with its great pouch of elastic skin below. The 

 sexes are alike in color, mainly pure white; the flight feathers (primaries and most of second- 

 aries) jet-black; bill and pouch reddish; feet red in summer, yellow in winter. In breeding 

 plumage there is a drooping crest "of white or pale yellow feathers from the back of the 

 head, the chest and lesser wing coverts are pale yellow, and there is a bony wart-like knob 

 or ridge near the middle of the upper mandible. This knob and the occipital crest are shed 

 after the breeding season. Young birds lack the black wing feathers, but have a little 

 brown or gray in the wings and on the head; otlierwise they are wliite. 



Length of adult, 4^ to 6 feet; spread of wings, 8 to 10 feet; wing, about 2 feet; bill 12 

 to 15 inches. 



29. Brown Pelican. Pelecanus occidentalis Linn. (126) 



Synonyms: Common Pelican (of Florida). — Pelecanus onocrotalus occidentalis, Linn., 

 1766. — Pelecanus fuscus, of most authors. 



Readily distinguished from the White Pelican by the prevaiUng colors, 

 the naked lower mandible, and 22 tail feathers instead of 24. 



Distribution. — ^Atlantic coast of tropical and subtropical America, 

 north on the Atlantic coast to North Carolina; accidental in Illinois and 

 Michigan. 



According to Dr. Morris Gibbs of Kalamazoo, the late W. H. CoUins 

 of Detroit wrote him "A specimen taken near Romeo, Michigan in the 

 spring of 1882." Probably this record was considered too doubtful for 

 insertion in Cook's "Birds of Michigan," but we arc able now to add two 

 more records which establish the species as a very rare visitor to the state. 

 Dr. J. W. Vehe of St. Joseph, Michigan states that "an adult in good 

 plumage was shot at St. Joseph, Michigan, June 7, 1904, and was brought 

 to me in the flesh; I examined, measured, and fully identified it. I have 

 seen thousands of these birds alive, and have shot and skinned numerous 

 specimens in Florida, and there is no possibility of a mistake in this identi- 

 fication. It was not a bird which had escaped from some zoological garden, 

 or at least it showed no signs whatever of recent confinement. The gunners 

 who killed it refused to sell, but took it away and I have been unable to 

 trace the specimen." Dr. Vclie also states that "On September 8, 1904, 



