AMERICAN BROWN PELICAN 75 



The Brown Pelicans soon accept man's presence as 

 something not to be dreaded and become very tame. I 

 have repeatedly had them, near the winter resorts in 

 Florida, take food from my hand, or rather catch the 

 food tossed to them, while within three feet of me. (Fig. 

 22.) 



Fish Crows, large Gulls and mosquitoes are the prin- 

 cipal enemies of the water-surrounded nest-sites of the 

 rooking birds. Man is the only destroyer of living things 

 who has no special motive save a selfish and useless one. 



An additional handicap under which these birds 

 labor in rearing their young on the ground is the habit of 

 the full-grown young birds of devouring the less matured 

 nestlings of their neighbors. The parent birds do not, as 

 do our Robins and Wood Thrushes, show parental love 

 and affection. Seemingly, home duties cease with the 

 supplying of food. 



Brown Pelicans are very ungainly in their efforts to 

 pick anything from the ground, but their headlong diving 

 is the very climax of grace and accuracy. 



There does not appear to be any neighborly or 

 friendly intercourse between the water birds that colon- 

 ize at the breeding places. In fact, I witnessed many a 

 fight between next door neighbors on Big Bird Island, in 

 the Laguna de la Madre, when an over-zealous bird tried 

 to steal a stick from the side walls of a neighbor's nest. 

 A flock of breeding Pelicans undoubtedly devours large 

 numbers of fish in a season, but from all reliable sources 

 it is understood that their food consists of the unsavory 

 Menhaden, or mullet. Far more than I relish a tasteless 

 baked or fried mullet, I enjoy seeing a Pelican catch one. 

 The birds are welcome to my share of these fish. 



