172 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



attitude at once distinguish them from all our other birds. The Double- 

 crested cormorant is a species of eastern North America, breeding from 

 Dakota and New Brunswick northward, and wintering from the 38th 

 parallel to the Gulf of Mexico. 



FaraUy PELECANIDA.E 



Pelicans 



Characters. Totipalmate birds of large size and great expanse of wing ; 

 bill very long, straight, flattened and grooved, and furnished with a hawk- 

 like hook at the tip; an enoiTtious pouch fitted to the branches of the lower 

 mandible which serves as a net in catching fish; lores and pouch bare; feet 

 very stout; tail short, of many feathers. 



Pelicans are mostly confined to wann regions, nesting in large colonies 

 usually on islands, placing the nest on or near the ground. Eggs are from 

 two to five in number. The young are altricial in nature. They are fed 

 on fish brought to them by their parents. In feeding they thrust their 

 bills down the parent's gullet until their whole head is sometimes out of 

 sight. This peculiar habit coupled with the fact that the pelican's pouch 

 and gullet is often bloody from wounds made b}^ the spines of fishes which 

 it has swallowed, undoubtedly gave rise to the legend that the pelican 

 nourishes its young with blood from its own breast. White pelicans fish 

 in companies, driving the fish before them and scooping them up as they 

 come to the surface; but brown pelicans catch their prey by phmging from 

 a hight of 20 feet, or more, as they course back and forth above the water 

 and the resulting splash may be heard for a half mile [Chapman]. 



Pelecanus erythrorhynchos Gmelin 

 American White Pelican 



Pelecanus erythrorhynchos Gmehn. Syst. Nat. 1788. Ed. i. 2:571 



A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 125 



peleca'nus, Lat., peHcan; erythrorhyu'dius, Gr. £puOp6^, red, and /'ixx'^i beak 



Description. Breeding plumage: White; primaries black; occipital 

 crest and wing coverts dull yellow; a horny prominence on the bill. In 



