THE AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN. 



(Pelecanus erythrorhynchos.} 



In the year 1758 the naturalist Linna- these birds, however, is the large pouch 



eus gave to the birds called Pelicans the formed by an elastic skin depending from 



generic name Pelecanus. In this genus the two sides of the lower mandible and 



he also placed the cormorants and the extending nearly the whole length of the 



gannets. These with the snake-birds, bill. This pouch may be greatly distend- 



the frigate-birds and the tropic-birds were e d and will hold a large quantity of either 



for a long time grouped together under so iid O r liquid matter. The bills are de- 



the family name Pelecanidae. This name, pressed and strongly hooked, 



however, is now restricted to the various The American White Pelican ranges 



species of the Pelicans which are includ- throughout the whole of North America 



ed in a single genus. as far north, in the interior, as the 61 



The generic name Pelecanus and the north latitude, and as far to the south- 

 common name, Pelkan are derived from ward in winter as Central America, 

 pelekan, the Greek name for these birds. Northward from Florida, along the At- 

 They were well known to the ancients by lantic coast, it is now rare, 

 whom they were . called Ornacrotalus. In the year 1838 Audubon gave this 

 There is a legend of great antiquity for species the specific name Americanus, in 

 which there is no foundation in fact, which view of his discovery that it differed in 

 states that the pelican feeds to her young essential characteristics from the Euro- 

 blood drawn from her own breast, in pean form, called Ornacrotalus. The most 

 which she herself has made the incision, marked difference that he noticed was the 



There are about ten species of pelicans crest upon the upper mandible which he 

 distributed throughout the world, mostly supposed was permanent t..rH not, as we 

 confined to those countries having warm now know, a characteristic of tins species 

 climates. Two or three species, however, only during the breeding season. In writ- 

 extend their range into the colder re- ing of the naming of this species he uses 

 gions during the summer months. Three the following beautiful language : "In 

 of the species inhabit North America and consequence of this discovery, I have 

 two of these are seldom seen except on honored it with the name of my beloved 

 the sea coasts ; the brown pelican (Pele- country, over the mighty streams of 

 canus fuscus) on the Atlantic coast and which may this splendid bird wander free 

 the California brown pelican (Pelecanus and unmolested to the most distant times, 

 californicus) on the Pacific coast. The as it has already done in the misty ages of 

 other species is the bird of our illustra- unknown antiquity." 

 tion, and is common in the interior as Much as we desire to honor Audubon, 

 well as on the seaboard of California. who has given us so much of interest con- 



The pelicans are notably social in their cerning the life histories of the birds, yet 



habits, a large number nesting together, we are restrained by the rules of scientific 



The flight of a large flock is an attractive naming, which require under ordinary 



sight. Their wings move in unison and circumstances, the use of the earliest 



apparently without much effort. After a name. Audubon's name was -antedated 



few strokes of the wings they frequently by that of Gmelin, a German Naturalist, 



sail, forming graceful circles, often at who in 1788 noticing the peculiar charac- 



great,.eleyations. teristics of the American White Pelican 



THe/rnos't remarkable characteristic of and that it differed from the European 



10 



