316 BIRD-HUNTING 



of our skins turned out very well, and were in fine 

 condition after a little work on them on our return, 

 Rettig being a first-rate taxidermist. 



The last day we shot three Mediterranean Black- 

 headed Gulls — lovely birds they were, even more 

 striking than our brown hooded Larus -ridibundus, 

 which is also common here. They had jet-black 

 heads, with a scarlet eyelid, and a white patch above 

 and below the eyes, with red beak and feet ; we also 

 got a Little Gull, unfortunately damaged too much 

 to skin. 



But this expedition, enjoyable enough though it 

 was, was quite unsuccessful in its primary object, the 

 finding of a nesting colony of Pelecanus onocrotalus. 

 And considering that last year's search also failed, I 

 came to the conclusion that they probably nested in 

 some other part of the Dobrudscha higher up the 

 river. In this I was right, for eventually, months 

 after my return, Rettig, on a winter hunting expedi- 

 tion, fell in with an old nesting-ground of these 

 birds, almost by accident, and succeeded in shooting 

 two birds of the same year. He described the bushes 

 for a distance of ij kilometres as destroyed by the 

 dung of the thousands of Pelicans and other birds 

 which had nested there — 



1 Tausende und Tausende von Pelicanen mussen 

 hier gewesen sein ; Cormorane und Phalacr. pygm. 



