300 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Behavior. — Adult brown pelicans are practically voiceless, but the 

 young are exceedingly noisy at all ages. They begin to make them- 

 selves heard during the hatching process with a grunting sound, as 

 the young bird emerges from the shell ; this develops into a barking 

 note and finally into a shrill, piercing scream as the young birds 

 struggle for their food, making feeding times on Pelican Island 

 both boisterous and noisy. 



The flight of brown pelicans when well under way is strong, grace- 

 ful, and well sustained on their long and powerful wings, but when 

 starting from either land or water the first few efforts to overcome 

 the inertia of their heavy bodies seem awkward and labored. They 

 fly long distances to their feeding grounds, relieving their slow 

 sweeping wing strokes with frequent periods of soaring or scaling. 

 At times they may be seen sailing about high in the air, apparently 

 for sport or exercise, but they are by no means equal to the white 

 pelicans in this respect. 



Fall. — Brown pelicans are not strictly migratory, as they are gen- 

 erally resident in the near vicinity of their breeding grounds, but 

 after the cares of the nesting season are over they become more or 

 less nomadic and some few of them, generally young birds, often 

 wander long distances. 



Winter. — But the greater number spend the remainder of the 

 summer, fall, and winter traveling about in large flocks, young and 

 old usually in flocks by themselves along the coasts of Florida and 

 the Gulf States, resorting to the inland lakes to fish and resting in 

 long lines on the sand bars, mud flats, or beaches of the outer islands. 

 They are particularly abundant among the shallow bays of southern 

 Florida, among the Florida Keys, and in the great bird reservations 

 of the Louisiana coast, where food fish are abundant and where they 

 spend their leisure season in the congenial, if not always friendly, 

 companionship of the royal terns, laughing gulls, man-o-war-birds, 

 and Florida cormorants. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Breeding range. — Mainly on south Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the 

 United States, from South Carolina (Bull's Bay) to southern Texas 

 (Padre Island). Probably breeds among the Greater Antilles (Cuba, 

 Jamaica, and Porto Rico) . Said to breed in the Bahamas and on the 

 coasts of Central and South America, as far south as Brazil. Breed- 

 ing grounds protected in the following reservations: In Florida, 

 Pelican Island ; and in Louisiana, Breton Island, and East Timbalier. 



Winter range. — From the Bahamas, Florida, and the Gulf coast 

 of the United States southward, including all the West Indies and 

 the eastern coasts of Central and South America, as far south as 

 Brazil. 



