LIFE HISTORIES OF Is^OETII AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 303 



sters, eight months only having elapsed since the previous hrood. Tliey were fed 

 hy running their bills well into the parent's pouch and gulping in the food. 



Eggs. — The eggs are like those of the brown pelicun, but decidedly 

 larger. The measurements of 48 eggs, in various collections, average 

 78.5 by 50.6 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 

 85 by 51.2, 78 by 54, 69 by 49, and 75 by 47 millimeters. 



Young. — Mr. A. B. Howell has sent me the following notes on the 

 behavior of the young : 



They are noisy little fellows, clucking to themselves continuously, and with a 

 flirt of the wings at each cluck. In spite of their tender age they are very 

 pugnacious, and they need to be, even though it does not do them much good 

 wlien the western gulls take a notion to peek out their brains. When two- 

 thirds grown they remind one of partly plucked geese, especially as they are 

 given to flocking before an intruder. They are only too ready with a vicious 

 lunge of the bill and they disgorge at a suspicion of danger ; which act the gulls 

 accept as the act of a kind Providence. They are always willing to step off a 

 ledge into a patch of cactus, where they flounder around in a most helpless way. 

 If one is induced to take his maiden flight under slight excitement, he will 

 launch out on slow unsteady wings with feet fully extended, teeter a moment 

 and return, but he is unable to check his speed and brings up against the cliff 

 with a shock that kills him instantly, much to the amusement of the audience 

 of gulls, who troop down to investigate. 



Plumages.— The sequence of plumages to maturity is apparently 

 the same as in the eastern brown pelican. The juvenal, or first year, 

 plumage is characterized by the dull, light-brown upper parts and 

 the white under parts. It is worn for about a year, or until the 

 first postnuptial molt, when the young bird is about 14 or 15 

 months old. A complete molt, prolonged through the summer and 

 fall of that year, produces the second winter plumage. In this 

 plumage the silver-gray feathers are, at least partially, acquired on 

 the back, wings, and scapulars, but not in the perfection of the adult ; 

 the head and neck are similar to those of the adult, but are more or 

 less mottled with dusky; the under parts are of a somewhat lighter 

 shade of the same brown as in the adult, more or less mottled with 

 white on the belly, and the brown feathers have each a central streak 

 of white. A partial molt during the winter and spring produces 

 the second nuptial plumage, in which the birds begin to breed. At 

 this season the under parts become browner, but still with white 

 median streaks, the head becomes wdiiter, and some dark brown 

 appears in the hind neck. At the next complete molt, the second 

 postnuptial, the adult winter plmnage is assumed, when the young 

 bird is 26 or 27 months old. 



Adults have a partial molt in the late winter and early sprino-, 

 involving mainly the head and neck, which produces the well-known 

 nuptial plumage, and a complete postnuptial molt in the summer 

 and fall, which produces the winter plumage, in which the hind neck 



