ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 273 



fish, which they must necessarily obtain from Bear 

 River, from the Weber, the Jordan, or from the Warm 

 Springs on the eastern side of Spring Valley, at all of 

 which places they were observed fishing for food. The 

 nearest of these points was more than thirty miles 

 distant, making necessary a flight of at least sixty 

 miles to procure and transport food for the subsistence 

 of their young. Immense numbers of young birds 

 were huddled together in groups about the island, 

 under the charge of a grave looking nurse or keeper, 

 who, all the time that we were there, was relieved 

 from guard at intervals as regularly as a sentinel."^ 



Incidents illustrative of this class of qualities could 

 be multiplied to an indefinite extent. They tend in a 



^ Stansbury's Salt Lake, p. 193. Another incident related by 

 the same writer, expressive of the maternal solicitude as well as 

 intelligence of the pelican, is worth repeating. "Rounding the 

 north point of Antelope Island, we called at the little islet, to 

 which we had given the name of Egg Island, to look after our 

 old friends, the gulls and pelicans. * * * One poor fellow, 

 about four inches long, driven by the extremity of his fear, took 

 to the water of his own accord, when he was swept out by the 

 current to the distance of two or three hundred yards, and seemed 

 quite bewildered by the novelty of his situation. As soon as he 

 was discovered by the old birds, who hovered over our heads in 

 thousands, watching our proceedings with great anxiety and noise, 

 one — the parent, we judged, from its greater solicitude — lighted 

 down by its side, and was soon joined by half a dozen others, 

 who began guiding the little navigator to the shore, flying a 

 little way before him, and again alighting, the mother swimuiing 

 beside him, and evidently encouraging him in this, his first adven- 

 ture upon the water. The little fellow seemed perfectly to under- 

 stand what was meant, and wh(;n we sailed away, was advancing 

 rapidly under the convoy of his friends, and was within a few 

 yards of the shore, which he doul^tless reached in safet}"." — lb. 

 p. 207. 



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