48 ON THE liEACH AT DAYTON A. 



almost as if I were in church. First, both 

 birds flew a rod or two with slow and stately 

 flappings ; then, as if at some preconcerted 

 signal, both set their wings and scaled for 

 about the same distance ; then they resumed 

 their wing strokes ; and so on, till they passed 

 out of sight. I never heard them utter a 

 sound, or saw them make a movement of any 

 sort (I speak of what I saw at Daytona) ex- 

 cept to fly straight on, one behind another. 

 If church ceremonials are still open to amend- 

 ment, I would suggest, in no spirit of irrev- 

 erence, that a study of pelican processionals 

 would be certain to yield edifying results. 

 Nothing done in any cathedral could be more 

 solemn. Indeed, their solemnity was so great 

 that I came at last to find it almost ridiculous ; 

 but that, of course, was only from a want of 

 faith on the part of the beholder. The birds, 

 as I say, were brown pelicans. Had they 

 been of the other species, in churchly white 

 and black, the ecclesiastical effect would per- 

 haps have been heightened, though such a 

 thing is hardly conceivable. 



Some beautiful little gulls, peculiarly dainty 

 in their appearance (" Bonaparte's gulls," 

 they are called in books, but " surf gulls " 



