48 ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA. 
almost as if I were in church. First, both 
birds flew a rod or two with slow and stately 
flappings; then, as if at some preconcerted 
signal, both set their wings and scaled for 
about the same distance; then they resumed 
their wing strokes ; and so on, till they passed 
out of sight. I never heard them utter a 
sound, or saw them make a movement of any 
sort (1 speak of what I saw at Daytona) ex- 
cept to fly straight on, one behind another. 
If church ceremonials are still open to amend- 
ment, I would suggest, in no spirit of irrey- 
erence, that a study of pelican processionals 
would be certain to yield edifying results. 
Nothing done in any cathedral could be more 
solemn. Indeed, their solemnity was so great 
that I came at last to find it almost ridiculous ; 
but that, of course, was only from a want of 
faith on the part of the beholder. The birds, 
as I say, were brown pelicans. Had they 
been of the other species, in churchly white 
and black, the ecclesiastical effect would per- 
haps have been heightened, though such a 
thing is hardly conceivable. 
Some beautiful little gulls, peculiarly dainty 
in their appearance (‘“ Bonaparte’s gulls,” 
they are called in books, but “surf gulls” 
