PELECANTTS. 277 



into the stream to sleep. .Next morning we reached Kadat, a small 

 village where we expected to find the Pelicans. A well-built 

 Burmese house afforded us comfortable quarters. 



" The whole stream from the Sittang to Kadat runs through beauti- 

 ful forest with spare undergrowth, and in many places the stream 

 narrowed so much that we had carefully to pick a way for the boat 

 between the trees. Immense flocks of Pelicans and Adjutants were 

 flying in circles over our heads the whole day. Monkeys were very 

 common, and I saw more specimens of Polioaetus iclitliyaetus 

 during this trip than I have during the whole of my residence in 

 Burma. 



" AVe arrived too late in the day to do anything, but in the after- 

 noon, strolling out, we saw a good many Adjutants' nests, but it 

 was not easy to climb the trees. 



"On the morning of the llth I started early with several 

 Burmans into the forest. The floods had gone down, but the ground 

 was very muddy, and in many places, for long distances, the water 

 came up to my knees. Every quarter of a mile there was a 

 depression or nullah to be crossed, and I soon gave up any idea 

 I might have had of keeping myself dry. Walking was very 

 laborious, for though there was no undergrowth of jungle to 

 speak of, yet the roots of trees embedded in mud and water caused 

 me frequently to trip up. 



" The whole forest consisted of very large trees, but a portion, 

 about one in twenty, was made up of wood-oil trees, gigantic 

 fellows, 150 feet high and more, and with a smooth branchless 

 trunk of 80 to 100 feet. These are the trees selected by the 

 Pelicans. 



" I was out that day till 3 P.M., continually moving, and must 

 have walked at least twenty miles in various directions, but 

 never from first to last was 1 out of sight of either a Pelican's 

 or Adjutant' nest. From what I saw, and from what the Burmans 

 told me, I compute the breeding-place of these birds to extend 

 over an area about twenty miles long and five broad. 



" I shall describe the Adjutants' nests presently, but with regard 

 to the Pelicans' I noticed that no tree contained less than three 

 nests, and seldom more than fifteen. Some birds select the upper 

 branches, placing their nest in a fork, but others, the majority, 

 placed their nests on the nearly horizontal branches of the tree not 

 far from the trunk. In all cases, the nests on one branch touch 

 each other, and when these nests were on a horizontal branch they 

 looked like an enormous string of beads. 



" Judging from the size of the bird I should say the nest is about 

 two feet diameter, and, when in a fork, to be about eighteen inches 

 deep. Others on flat branches are shallower. They are composed 

 entirely of twigs and small branches, and I could detect no lining 

 in those nests which were thrown down to me. 



" The eggs are invariably three in number, and on the llth 

 November all I took were either fresh or only slightly incubated. 

 The female bird sits very closely, and frequently I found that the 



