BIG BIRD ISLAND 53 



While we were lying on the bottom of the boat, with 

 the star-studded dome above us, all the horrors of the 

 last tidal wave were gone over in detailed conversation 

 by the two men, for my comfort, I presume, as they fre- 

 quently referred to the sinister appearance of the cloud- 

 rimmed eastern horizon, where forked streaks of light- 

 ning zigzagged through space, to be followed by the 

 distant rumblings of thunder, the forerunners of a storm 

 that never materialized. 



During the night I awakened and for an instant 

 thought we were on the verge of being engulfed by an 

 approaching tidal wave. However, when I recalled that 

 the distant low rumbling was the pounding of the surf 

 of the Gulf of Mexico on the shore of Padre Island that 

 for two miles separates Laguna Madre from the gulf, 

 all of my fears vanished and I dropped into sleep, such 

 as one gets only when he breathes the purest air and 

 knows that all is well. 



The next day, as I neared the farther end of the 

 Island, I was gratified to see what on casual view ap- 

 peared to be a vast garden of large, full-blooming, white 

 flowers. This, I at once recognized as a Brown Pelican 

 breeding colony in full bloom. (Fig. 9.) The big, comic- 

 ally solemn-looking birds were there by the hundreds 

 and presented all phases of Pelican home life. The nests 

 were large structures, on the ground, made of dried 

 grass, weeds and sticks, all mud-plastered into a conical 

 mass a foot or more in height and two feet across, with 

 a slight depression in the center. 



These nests were promiscuously scattered over sev- 

 eral acres of ground and in many instances were so 

 closely studded that their walls were in contact with those 

 of the next-door neighbors. From my tent I witnessed 

 some very amusing incidents while I was making pic- 

 tures of the parent birds and taking field notes of my 

 close-up observations. 



The old birds have a persistent longing for the nest- 

 building material of their nearest friends, and do not 

 hesitate to steal a few sticks or blades of grass and ap- 

 propriate them to the beautifying of their own domiciles, 

 all of which is sure to bring a vigorous protest and cor- 

 poral punishment from the rightful owners, together 



