56 WATER BIRDS 
flying along the coast over the water in pelican fashion, 
one behind another. Their flight is characteristic, being 
five or six wing-strokes taken by all simultaneously, 
followed by a soaring, which lasts until the leader gives 
the signal for more wing-strokes. Back and forth up 
and down the coast, always in pelican single file, the 
line broken only when one dives to the water for an 
especially tempting fish. At the inlet on the west side 
of the isthmus of Santa Catalina, the early morning 
hours are vocal with the noise of their fishing. Plunk! 
plunk !— they dive one by one from various heights, 
striking the water with a heavy splash that can be 
heard several hundred feet. Mr. Gosse says that these 
Pelicans invariably turn a somersault under the surface 
of the water; for they descend diagonally, and the head 
emerges in the opposite direction. 
Although shown a young Brown Pelican which the 
owner said he had taken from the nest on Santa Cata- 
lina Islands, I found that the fishermen there agreed 
with Mr. Grinnell that no pelicans nested nearer than 
Los Coronados Islands. As they return to the same 
breeding ground year after year, the rookery would cer- 
tainly have been discovered, no matter how inaccessible. 
180. WHISTLING SWAN. — Olor columbianus. 
Famity: The Ducks, Geese, and Swans. 
Length: About 43 feet. 
Adults: Uniform white; basal portion of bill white, with lores black, 
the latter usually with a small yellow spot. 
Young: Light grayish; bill pinkish ; feet light. 
