378 THE WHITE PELICAN 



is somewhat over a mile long, and half a mile wide ; with a 

 central mass of tufa, some five hundred feet high, fringed 

 by fallen rock. As yet we had seen no Pelicans on it, but, 

 when climbing a rocky divide I looked over into a snowy 

 mass of them, my exultation could be measured only by the 

 time and trouble the journey to my view-point had required. 



Anahao is too big to be seen at a glance, however, and 

 during the day when we completely covered it, eight distinct 

 colonies of Pelicans were found, containing in all, 4000 

 young Pelicans and one hundred and eighty-nine eggs. The 

 young ranged in age from those just hatching to others 

 which were befirinnins: to acquire their wing-feathers. Gen- 

 erally speakinsr, all the young of one colony were approxi- 

 mately the same age ; suggesting that the various groups 

 formed quite distinctive villages, and conducted their af- 

 fairs wholly independent of one another. 



As I went from colony to colony and the old birds desert- 

 ed their younar to flv out of sight up the lake, I began to rea- 

 lize that it is one thine to reach a Pelican settlement and 

 onite another to learn something of the ways of its inhabit- 

 ants. In vain T crawled into crevices in the rocks or hid mv- 

 self in caves, the adult birds would reconnoitre the srrounr! in 

 some instances, but would not return to their homes and in 

 the end T left with onlv such information as could be s-afher- 

 erl from casual observation of the vonnsr and their nests. 



The latter were slisrhtlv heaped mounds of dirt and reh- 

 bles. hollowed at the top. much like the nests found on Shoal 

 Lake. The vonnsr. when hatched, are ruddv flesh oolor 

 practicallv naked. ^Tiortlv after birth, a snowv white 

 appears, which almost completelv covers the body when fhev 

 are between two and three weeks old. Unlike the Brown 

 Pelican, they are comparativelv silent, their only note beins p 

 a low, coughing, whining grunt. Their appearance is far 

 from prepossessing, and is not improved by their habit of 

 greeting visitors with wide open mouth and snapping bill. 



The desertion of the young, without regard to age, by 



