362 HKLECANlll.t,. 



one nerit, in others two, or one, and one nest was empty. All the nests were close together, 

 within the area of a small room, and were roui^hly arrani;ed collections of herbaj^e, part green, 

 part dry, very shapeless, atul the herbage was depressed as if cows had been lying on it, 

 the ground emitting a disagreeable smell, apparently from the excrement of the birds. The eggs 

 varied from pure white to dirty reddish-brown, and were all fresh. This island is some three or 

 four miles inshore of Penguin Island, where Mr. Atkinson took the eggs previously referred to, 

 and we supposed it was the same colony of birds, seeking a fresh breeding place, for previously 

 they were not known to lay where he found them. Early in December, 1888, a Circular Head 

 boatman found a number of well grown young Pelicans on Penguin Island, and in one nest a 

 half grown chick. The llight of the Pelican is an alternation of wing strokes and sailing with 

 fixed open wings a short distance. When they rise from the ground they take a few little hops 

 before they take wing, so as to gain impetus. They will fly round and round, gradually rising 

 upwards when disturbed, and llien make off as if they had worked air into their bodies, and when 

 made buoyant enough set forth on their journey. In June, i8yo, a Pelican was caught in the 

 bush by a party of surveyors, about ten miles inland from Circular Head. In September of the 

 following year one was found dead, crushed between the side of a ketch and the wharf at Circular 

 Head." 



Again from Tasmania Mr. K. X.. Atkinson writes me: — " (Jn the jnd October, 1905, during 

 a trip to the Hunter Islands, IJass Strait, my father and 1 found a small colony of Pdccanm 

 coiispiiilldlus breeding on Penguin Island, the nests occupying a lowdying rocky point, only a 

 few feet above and back from the sea. As we came upon the scene the parent birds flew off to 

 a safe distance, and remained on the water until after we were gone. The nests were placed 

 about a yard apart, and on an average measured two feet in outer diameter and inside twelve 

 inches across by three inches deep, but they varied in outside measurement according to the 

 nature of the site chosen. They were built of dried stems of some local plant, and lined with 

 tussock grass. Some contained two young birds or a young one and an egg, others only a 

 young one or a single egg. In one or two instances, where two birds occupied the same nest, 

 one was some days (possibly a week) older than the other ; one new arrival who succeeded 

 in slowly and laboriously climbing from its own nest into another containing a more advanced 

 downy covered chick, met with an unkind reception, and would probably have been killed had 

 I not come tu the rescue. They seemed very disagreeable, and ready to quarrel with any 

 intruder. Some small fish were lying in or near the nests, and one young bird was making 

 vigorous but vain attempts to swallow one sideways. My father, in company with Mr. W. J. 

 T. Armstrong, again visited this island on the 3rd November, 1909, when most of the nests 

 contained a single fresh egg. <Jn this occasion the nests were composed wholly of tussock grass, 

 the other vegetation having recently been destroyed by fire. Since the fire the island has become 

 chiefly a mass of drifting sand, and the Mutton Bird rookery has almost entirely disappeared." 



The eggs are usually two or three in number for a sitting, sometimes only one, varying in 

 form from an ellipse to an elongate-oval, some specimens being considerably pointed at the 

 smaller end. They are of a dull white or dirty yellowish-white, the shell being thickly and often 

 irregularly coated with lime, and usually much nest stained or soiled by the feet of the sitting 

 bird. A set in the Australian Museum Collection of three eggs, received in exchange from Mr. 

 J. H. Mellor, and taken by him on the Coorong, along the South Australian coast, on the ist 

 October, 1894, measure respectively : — Length (A) 3-58 x 2-27 inches : (B) 3-38 x 2-3 inches; 

 (C) 3'53 X 2-2 inches. .V set of two taken by Dr. L. Holden, on the 2nd November, 1886, on 

 Penguin Island, measures: — Length (.\) 3-6 x 2-17 inches; (B) 3'6 x 2-23 mches. Another 

 set of two taken by him on the same date measures ; — Length (A) 4-02 x 2-2 inches; (B) 372 

 X 2*52 inches. 



The breeding season in Eastern Australia and Tasmania usually commences at the latter 

 end of September, and continues until the end of March. 



