856 BIEDS OF INDIA. 



This large white Pelican is a regular visitant to India during 

 the cold weather, sometimes appearing in considerable flocks, and 

 clearing whole tanks and jheels of their fish, to the dismay of 

 the fishermen. They form a dense line across the tank, and 

 regularly hunt it from one end to the other. 



1002. Pelecanus mitratus, Lichtenstein. 



Abhand. K. Akad. Berlin, 1838, p. 436, pi. 111., f. 2— P. onocro- 

 talus apud Bonaparte and Bree — also of Blyth, Cat. 1740 — 

 and perhaps of other authors ; variety referred to by Pallas, Z. R. 

 A., II. p. 296, note. 



The Crested Pelican. 



Descr. — Occiput with a long pendent crest of narrow feathers, 

 4 or 5 inches long ; general colour milk-white with a faint roseate 

 tinge sometimes, but generally without a tinge of rosy ; the lower 

 throat pale yellowish in old birds ; some of the scapulars edged 

 with black ; primaries dusky ; secondaries grey on their outer 

 webs, blackish internally ; tertiaries almost white externally, grey 

 within ; tail white. 



The frontal feathers are not so far prolonged as in onocrotalus ; 

 the feathers of the head and neck are vt-ry close, soft, silky fur- 

 .like, and lengthened, very different from those of the last species. 

 The feathers of the back and wing-coverts are lengthened and 

 slender. 



Bill (as figured) yellow mixed with red, and with a red tip ; 

 orbits and pouch yellow ; irides red ; feet fleshy-red. Length of 

 a specimen from Dacca in the Asiatic Society's Museum, 5 feet 2 

 inches; wing 27 inches; tail 8 ; bill nearly 12 ; tarsus nearly 4 ; 

 mid-toe and claw nearly 5. 



This species is not as yet generally acknowledged. Bonaparte 

 gives it as a synonym of P. rufescens, evidently however without 

 examination, as in the form of its frontal plumes it resembles 

 onocrotalus and nut rufescens. Lichtenstein states that its characters, 

 as given above, are constant. Blyth, as previously stated, looked 

 upon it as true onocrotalus, misled no doubt liy the erroneous 

 descriptions of authors, whilst Gurney fully acknowledges it. Vide 

 Ibis 111, p. 135. 



