CITIES OF THE BROWN PELICANS 17 
been repeated upon the South Carolina coast. One bright 
afternoon we anchored our yawl off a veritable “ sea island,” 
a little sand-flat out in the open ocean. This was another 
reputed city of the pelicans, and here before us was quite an 
army of the great birds drawn up along the sand in pompous 
array. Now the pelican, ordinarily a most wary bird, as soon 
as it has a nest to guard, becomes one of the tamest and 
A TYPICAL pelican’s NEST 
most stolid members of its race, parental tenderness over¬ 
coming the wildness of its natural instinct. So, when I saw 
the pelicans, even before we had anchored, leave the 
island and alight out upon the sea, I was overwhelmed with 
well-grounded misgivings. The cause was soon made plain. 
Great white eggs were lying, scattered or in windrows, all 
over the sand, some of them buried beneath it. A recent gale 
had flooded the island and “ broken them up,” as the saying is. 
The eggs were fresh, and some were still in the nests with 
only a little sand washed in. Yet the birds had deserted and 
resumed their natural wildness. 
