214 FULLY WEB-FOOTED BIRDS 



gladly, and its motto is, "All's fish that cometh to net." It 

 is an amiable bird, sociable to an unlimited degree, harms no 

 one and makes no enemies, save in Texas, where the fish- 

 destroying fishermen wish the Pelicans slaughtered because 

 they eat fish and can't pick cotton. 



Pelican Island, in Indian River, Brevard County, Florida, 

 is the most interesting sight in the land of flowers. On an 

 area of about three acres, raised onlv two or three feet above 

 high-water mark, destitute of trees because the Pelicans 

 have nested them to death, live about 3,000 Brown Pelicans, 

 and each year they make about 1,500 nests. During every 

 breeding-season they inhabit that islet, nesting in small nests 

 of grass plucked on the spot, and arranged on the ground. 

 The few dead mangroves that still stand are loaded with 

 stick-made nests to the point of breaking down. 



Egg-laying begins about the 1st of February, and strag- 

 gles along until the end of May. By March 15 the breeding- 

 grounds contain, in close proximity, unfinished nests and nests 

 with fresh eggs (usually three); young just out of the shell; 

 half -grown young; and, finally, full-grown young. The latter 

 are great hulking babies, as large as their parents, but cov- 

 ered all over with down as white as cotton. 



It is no uncommon thing for a young Pelican to have 

 from three to five mullet in its neck and crop at one time, as 

 we have discovered by catching some of them with a search- 

 warrant, and searching their premises. 



To feed these hungry pouches, the old birds fly about 

 fifteen miles up the coast to fishing-grounds where silver 

 mullet are plentiful and cheap; and there each old bird fills 



