GG The Wilson Bulletin — No. 104 



The Chandelenr chain was first visited, and several days were 

 spent on the different little islets and sandspits making up the 

 group. Here sea birds were nesting by the thousands, a ver- 

 itable snowfield of swirling birds continually circling over 

 head, and the ground was covered with eggs. A couple 

 thousand pelicans were nesting on Errol and Grand Cochere, 

 but there were no young as yet. 



After a short run to Breton, Battledore and Hog islands, 

 and a day studying the nesting skimmers, the "Alexandria" 

 was headed for the "Mud-lumps" of the Mississippi river. 

 These Mud-lumps themselves are interesting, for they are 

 formed by a great pressure below thrusting up the earth's 

 crust until small islands result. These lumps show the evi-« 

 dence of the great forces beneath, by the faulting so charac- 

 teristic of rocky ledges. But if the shifting of great masses 

 of earth is not sufficient to attract the naturalist, the enor- 

 mous wealth of bird life congregated on such a small area 

 would surely appeal to him. For there, where the Mississippi 

 empties her muddy waters into the gulf, the largest colony 

 of Brown Pelicans in North America have chosen their homes, 

 and the fourteen little islets are literally covered with birds, 

 at least fifty thousand, according to our estimate. The cries 

 of the young birds were plainly audible from the "Alexan- 

 dria," over five hundred yards off the islands, and the con- 

 tinual going and coming of the long strings of adult birds, 

 almost always flying so close to the water that it seemed they 

 must wet the tips of the primaries at every stroke, told plainly 

 the great quantities of fish needed to feed such great numbers. 



What better place than this, the largest breeding colony of 

 Brown Pelicans in the country, to study the fearful ravages 

 being made upon our dwindling food supply? Surely, if the 

 food fishes are being destroyed as rapidly as the fishermen 

 would have us believe, some evidence of it would be seen on 

 these islands, where the young must be fed almost hourly. But 

 try as we might, and we really wanted to find a few game 

 fish that our data would not resemble a " stacked deck," we 

 were not able to find a single fish that man would eat. The 



