I04 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



BROWN PELICAN 



Pelecanus occidentalis Linncriis 



A. O. U. Xumber 12b 



Other Name. — Common Pelican (of Florida). 



General Description. — Length, 4J/2 feet; spread of 

 wings. 6'2 feet. General color, brown, darker above. 

 Bill with pouch hanging from under side. 



Color. — Adults: Head, white tinged with yellow 

 on crown, the white extending down neck in a narrow 

 border on side of pouch; rest of neck, dark chestnut; 

 upper parts, dusky brozcn, each feather whitish-cen- 

 tered ; wing-coverts, pale gray with white streaks ; 

 primaries, black; secondaries, dark brown with pale 

 edges ; tail-feathers, gray ; under parts, grayish-brown 

 striped with white on sides and flanks ; lower fore- 

 neck, variegated with ocher, chestnut, and black ; bill, 

 mottled with light gray and dusky, tinged in spots with 

 carmine; bare space around eyes, blue; iris, white; 



eyelids, red ; pouch, blackish ; feet, black. In winter 

 most of the neck is white. Young; Neck, plain 

 brownish ; other plumage similar but less intense than 

 in adults. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: In rookeries, on shores or 

 marshy islands, usually on the ground or sometimes in 

 low mangrove bushes ; constructed of sticks, coarse 

 grass, and weed stalks and lined with finer grasses. 

 Eggs : 2 or 3, chalky-white. 



Distribution. — Gulf coast of United States and 

 Atlantic coast of Central and South America; breeds 

 from Florida and Louisiana south to Brazil; rare in 

 North Carolina ; accidental in Wyoming, Nebraska, 

 Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Nova 

 Scotia. 



The Brown Pelican is an interesting southern 

 and tropical bird, great of bulk, powerful in 

 flight, and withal a mightly fisher. It is ntimer- 

 ous on our Atlantic coast from South Carolina 

 to Texas, where it breeds on various isolated 

 islands. Fishermen dislike it because the pouch- 

 net which it carries under its great beak is large, 

 and its appetite for fish in proportion. But, con- 

 sidering that man's nets are so much vaster, and 

 that two or three men kill more fish in one day 



than can thousands of Pelicans, surely there are 

 fish enough in the ocean that we shotild not be- 

 grudge the lives of these interesting and spectac- 

 ular birds. It is not Pelicans that will ever 

 exterminate any species of fish, but only avari- 

 cious man, who all too often petrifies his soul and 

 artistic sense through inordinate greed of hoard- 

 ing. The poor Pelican never hoards, bttt only 

 satisfies the stern behest of hunger. 



The sight of the advancing wedge or line of 



Photograph by H. K- Job 



Courtesy ot National Association of Audubon bucieties 

 BROWN PELICANS 

 On East Timbalier Reservation. Louisiana 



