ON THE BEACH AT DAYTON A. 47 



snowy white, with the tips of his wings jet 

 black. If he would have come inshore like 

 the ospreys, I think I should never have 

 tired of his evolutions. 



The gannets showed themselves only now 

 and then, but the brown pelicans were an 

 every-day sight. I had found them first 

 on the beach at St. Augustine. Here at 

 Daytona they never alighted on the sand, 

 and seldom in the water. They were always 

 flying up or down the beach, and, unless 

 turned from their course by the presence of 

 some suspicious object, they kept straight on 

 just above the breakers, rising and falling 

 with the waves ; now appearing above them, 

 and now out of sight in the trough of the 

 sea. Sometimes a single bird passed, but 

 commonly they were in small flocks. Once 

 I saw seventeen together, a pretty long 

 procession ; for, whatever their number, they 

 went always in Indian file. Evidently some 

 dreadful thing would happen if two pelicans 

 should ever travel abreast. It was partly 

 this unusual order of march, I suspect, which 

 gave such an air of preternatural gravity 

 to their movements. It was impossible to 

 see even two of them go by without feeling 



