224 



THE OPAL SEA 



The peli- 

 cans. 



The 

 plunger. 



Cormorants, 



shags, 



diveri. 



fishes, plunging head first with shut wings 

 every few minutes, his huge bill snapping up 

 luckless victims with great certainty. Once 

 caught perhaps the fish is not instantly lifted 

 out of water, but is manoeuvred until he is 

 quietly slipped into the large distensible pouch 

 under the lower mandible. Then the head is 

 tossed backward and the fish glides down the 

 long throat. This performance may go on from 

 dawn to dusk with few interruptions; and the 

 next day the pursuit be taken up with renewed 

 ardor. Success does not seem to weary him in 

 the least. All the appliances to make fishing 

 easy and profitable are freely bestowed by na- 

 ture as though the pelican were a favored crea- 

 tion. The bill is not only sharp and hooked at 

 the end, but is rough-edged so that no slippery 

 specimen can wriggle out of it, the body is as 

 tough as leather to withstand the blow upon the 

 water in continuous plunging from above, the 

 head and neck are muscled to the la!st degree 

 that the bill may move swiftly and unerringly. 

 The whole machine works perfectly. 



Always where the pelicans and gannets 

 gather, perched along the shore and on the 

 rocks, are hordes of cormorants, shags, divers — 

 birds quite as clever in chasing fish under water 

 as the pelican is in catching them from above. 



