ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA. 47 
snowy white, with the tips of his wings jet 
black. Lf he would have come inshore like 
the ospreys, I think I should never have 
tired of his evolutions. 
The gannets showed themselves only now 
and then, but the brown pelicans were an 
every-day sight. I had found them first 
on the beach at St. Augustine. Here at 
Daytona they never alighted on the sand, 
and seldom in the water. They were always 
flying up or down the beach, and, unless 
turned from their course by the presence of 
some suspicious object, they kept straight on 
just above the breakers, rising and falling 
with the waves ; now appearing above them, 
and now out of sight in the trough of the 
sea. Sometimes a single bird passed, but 
commonly they were in small flocks. Once 
I saw seventeen together,—a pretty long 
procession ; for, whatever their number, they 
went always in Indian file. Evidently some 
dreadful thing would happen if two pelicans 
should ever travel abreast. It was partly 
this unusual order of march, I suspect, which 
gave such an air of preternatural gravity 
to their movements. It was impossible to 
see even two of them go by without feeling 
