PELICAN ISLAND 89 



coast do not nest until April, the earliest recorded date for 

 egg-laying being April 21. There is occasionally a supple- 

 mentary breeding season on Pelican Island ; from one hun~ 

 dred to three hundred birds sometimes laying late in April. 

 Whether this represents a first or second brood is unknown, 

 but it is apparently comparable to the normal west coast 

 breeding season. 



That there should be six 

 months difference in the 

 breeding time of birds which 

 pass their year under essen- 

 tially similar conditions, is as 

 surprising as though the 

 mangroves of eastern Flor- 

 ida were to blossom half a 

 year earlier than those of the 

 west coast. With the infor- 

 mation now at our command 

 the case appears to be inex- 

 plicable. 



As late at least as April 1 

 one rarely if ever sees a 

 Brown Pelican on the gulf 

 coast of Florida with the full 

 brown hind neck of the breed- 

 ing plumage ; while on the At- 

 lantic Coast I have seen but AdultPelicansinBreeding (brow n 



one adult bird with the white neck) and Non-breeding (white 



hind neck of the non-breeding 



plumage. Birds from the two coasts possibly therefore do 

 not intermingle and the difference in their nesting seasons 

 which this difference in plumage correlates, may be a result 

 of long continued isolation. The April nesting of a few east 

 coast birds may, therefore, represent the survival of a near- 

 Iv obsolete habit. 



