AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN. 367 



uncouth, unwieldy, and grotesque figure to the bird with which 

 it is associated. The French very justly nickname these birds 

 Grand-gosiers, or Great-throats ; and as this monstrous en- 

 largement of the gullet is capable of holding a dozen quarts 

 of water, an idea may be formed of the quantity of fish they 

 can scoop when let loose among a shoal of pilchards or other 

 fish, which they pursue in the course of their migrations. 



The Pelican appears to attain to a great age. According to 

 Culmann, in Gesner, a tame one in possession of the Emperor 

 Maximilian, which is said to have followed him with the army, 

 lived to the age of fourscore. 



It is remarkable that while the Pelican of the Atlantic and 

 the Pacific habitually frequents the ocean, that which so gen- 

 erally inhabits North America is rarely seen on the sea-coast, 

 and then only as a straggler, seeking, even at such times, the 

 protection of bays and rivers. Its habits are also essentially 

 different. It never boldly soars aloft, nor seeks its prey at sea. 

 The oceanic species is likewise seen in troops, sometimes fol- 

 lowing a retreating shoal of fish and circumventing their 

 escape by enclosing them as in a ring ; at other times soar- 

 ing over their prey, these birds drop like a plummet, and 

 plunging headlong, cause the water to fly up eight to ten feet. 

 These and other actions foreign to our bird would seem to indi- 

 cate an original difference of race. Yet again we find them 

 on the old continent,- principally upon large rivers and lakes. 



The White Pelican does not occur regularly to the eastward of 

 the Mississippi valley, though numbers have at sundry times wan- 

 dered to the Atlantic, appearing all along the coast from Florida to 

 the Bay of Fundy, and I have examined one specimen that was 

 captured on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



It is said to occur regularly on the Mississippi River and north 

 to Wisconsin, and is common in Manitoba. Small flocks are seen 

 occasionally on the Great Lakes. 



