NATATORES. 48? 



sea, both in Tasmania and on the continent of Australia. I 

 shot specimens on Green Island in D'Entrecasteaux' Channel, 

 and I also met with it in abundance in South Port River : 

 owing to the advance of colonization it had become scarce in 

 the Derwent and Tamar when I visited Tasmania, but it may 

 still breed on the small group called Stanners' Bay Islands, 

 lying off the south-western end of Flinder's Island in Bass's 

 Straits. In Australia it is common on tlie Hunter as well as 

 in Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs, and on all the waters of 

 the interior, such as the Mokai, Namoi, &c., and on all lakes 

 of sufficient magnitude to afford it a supply of food. So 

 numerous is it on these inland waters, that Captain Sturt 

 states that the channel of a river from seventy to eighty yards 

 broad was literally covered with Pelicans ; and that they were 

 in such numbers upon the Darling as to be quite dazzling to 

 the eye. 



The nest is a large structure of sticks and grassy herbage, 

 placed just above high-water mark ; the eggs are generally two 

 in number, of a dirty yellowish white, three inches and three- 

 quarters long by two inches and three-eighths broad. 



The entire plumage white, with the exception of the scapu- 

 laries, a line along the edge of the shoulder, the lower row 

 of the greater wing-coverts, the primaries, secondaries, a few 

 of the upper tail-coverts, and the tail, which are black ; on the 

 breast a pale wash of sulphur-yellow ; gular pouch and man- 

 dibles yellowish white, the latter stained with blue, which 

 gradually increases in depth to the tip ; apical half of the 

 cutting edges of the mandibles yellow, gradually increasing 

 in depth to the tip ; nail of both mandibles greenish yellow ; 

 irides dark brown ; eyelash indigo-blue ; orbits pale sulphur- 

 yellow, bounded by a narrow ring of pale indigo-blue ; legs 

 and upper part of the tarsi yellowish white ; feet, webs, and 

 lower part of the tarsi pale bluish grey, the two colours 

 blending with each other at the middle of the tarsi ; nails dull 

 yellowish white. 



