108 ZOOLOGY. 



SULA FUSCA. 



The Booby. 



The boobies are still more common than the gannets off the coast of California. On our 

 outward voyage, with their characteristic stupidity, several of them came on board, apparently 

 with no better motive than to gratify their curiosity, and when on the deck had no power to 

 rise again. 



PELECANUS FUSCUS. 



Brown Pelican. 



The brown pelican is very abundant on all parts of the Pacific coast which I visited. In the 

 bay of Panama they are particularly numerous. At Acapulco a few may always be seen, while 

 at the Golden Gate and the mouth of the Columbia their numbers are surprisingly great, and 

 their goblin figures, flitting about, all head and wings, are inseparably connected with my 

 remembrances of those localities. 



This pelican is exclusively confined to the seacoast, and is never found, at least so far as my 

 own experience goes, on the inland waters. On the contrary, the white pelican is almost as 

 exclusively confined to the interior, and to bodies of fresh water. 



About San Francisco, both outside of the Gate and on the bay, when near or on the water, 

 one is scarcely ever out of sight of the brown pelican ; yet I never saw the white pelican while 

 residing there. It was only on going up into the interior, on Suisun bay and the Sacramento 

 river, that we found the white species entirely replacing the brown. 



On San Pablo bay the two species meet and mingle. 



At the Golden Gate the habits of the brown pelican may be studied quite at one's leisure. 

 Like many other aquatic birds, at nightfall they seek the broad expanse of the open sea, where 

 they may float in safety and sleep rocked by the gentle swell of the ocean. Near the shore they 

 would be exposed to the attacks of various foes ; the turbulence of the breakers is, probably, not 

 invocative of sleep, and, strange as it may seem, birds, as well as ships, unless ensconced in 

 some snug harbor, are safer in a storm with a good offing. In every severe storm occurring 

 upon the western coast more or less pelicans, ducks, and grebes are thrown wrecked and drowned 

 upon the shore. This will be less wondered at than that fishes, the natural inhabitants of the 

 watery element, should in great numbers share the fate of the birds. 



After passing the night at sea, in the grey dawn of the morning the pelicans begin to move, 

 trailing in long lines, just above the surface of the water, toward the shore, where they find 

 their food. While shooting in the vicinity of San Francisco I passed several nights on the water 

 in a little schooner which we had chartered for the purpose. As the day began to dawn, and 

 the mist slowly to lift from the surface of the water, the birds which had flown seaward the 

 evening before began to return. The long lines of uncouth and ghostly pelicans, dimly seen 

 through the fog, slowly flapping their huge bat-like wings in funereal rank and silence, losing 

 themselves again in the fog, formed a vision peculiarly spectral and unreal. 



The habits of the brown pelicans of the Pacific coast agree closely with those of the pelicans 

 inhabiting the Gulf of Mexico, described by Audubon. Their mode of fishing is the same. 

 When flying along, perhaps twenty feet above the water, from time to time, with a spiral gyra- 

 tion, they plunge, sometimes quite beneath the surface, after their finny food, and almost inva- 

 riably with success. 



