160 BIRDS OF TUNISIA 



Iris red ; bare space round the eye, the forehead and its sides yellowish ; 

 bill bluish-grey, with a reddish line down the sides and furnished with a 

 large pouch, capable of being greatly distended ; feet pink. 



Total length 70 inches, wing 28, culmen 16, tarsus 5. 



Adult female similar to the male, but with the crest more developed. 



The young bird is pale buff and ash-brown, darker on the back and wings, 

 and dull white on the underparts. 



Though ahundant further east, the Roseate or White Pelican 

 is of rare occurrence in North-west Africa, and is only occasionally 

 to be met with in Tunisia as a straggler. An example of it was 

 captured alive near Sousa, on the east coast of the Regency, in 

 December, 1903, and kept in confinement for some time, according 

 to Blanc, who wrote to me at the time, offering me the bird. 



Loche states that the species is merely an accidental straggler to 

 Algeria, while from Marocco it appears to be so far unrecorded. 



On the Italian coasts the species is to be met with occasionally, 

 and specimens of it have been obtained from time to time at various 

 places. Its habitat proper, however, is undoubtedly further east, and 

 in South-eastern Europe, North-eastern Africa, and Asia Minor it is 

 common. Whether it occurs in its typical form still further east in 

 Asia, does not appear to be yet clearly established. The Pelican found 

 throughout a considerable portion of the Asiatic continent and in Indo- 

 Chinese countries, is P. roseus, Gm., distinguished by its smaller size, 

 its shorter bill, the absence of any frontal swelling, and by having the 

 tail composed of twenty-two feathers. 



The Roseate Pelican, like other members of the genus, frequents 

 lagoons and shallow waters on or not far from the sea-coast, where 

 it obtains its food, consisting entirely of fish. It is essentially 

 gregarious in its habits, and will even associate with other birds not 

 of its own kind. It swims and flies well, though its flight is at first 

 rather laboured when it rises from the water. It breeds in large 

 colonies, on uninhabited islands or marshes, depositing from two to 

 four white eggs thickly covered with a chalky coating and measuring 

 about 90 X 60 mm. 



According to Loche (Expl. Sci. Alg. Ois. ii. p. 1-59) the Dalmatian 

 Pelican (P. crispus) is of very rare and accidental occurrence in Algeria. 

 There appears to be no record of its occurrence in Tunisia, but the 

 species has been met with occasionally in Italy. The Florence 

 Museum contains examples of it obtained in the Peninsula, and the 

 Palermo Museum has a psecimen captured in Sicily. 



