60 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES. 



grubs as a crow or a blackbird might, whence the pretty name 

 the farmers there give it of Prairie Dove. The gulls are good 

 grasshopper catchers, and the terns eat dragon-flies in large 

 numbers. 



But the pelican is the bird most unlike any we know in the 

 East. His great bulky figure and fully webbed feet, his 

 wrinkled, swinging pouch and long, flat bill, though familiar 

 enough to city children, are quite unknown to those who do 

 not live near parks or menageries. 



Any child who lives near Lincoln Park in Chicago, where 

 the water-birds are given full liberty, and neither confined nor 

 maimed, but trusted to remain where they are well treated, 

 may see them fishing in the ponds, or sitting quietly about the 

 shores preening their feathers. 



In Central Park, New York, where the birds are not so well 

 cared for, but have their wing-tips cut off at the joint, and their 

 liberty largely taken from them, the chief interest is to watch 

 them fight. A gannet and crane there used to have a perpetual 

 difference of opinion, and to carry on a most amusing duel. 

 The long-legged, long-necked crane appeared to have every 

 advantage of his' short-legged, short-necked antagonist, which 

 could not reach up to the crane's body. The crane would 

 torment the gannet until the latter opened his mouth, when the 

 crane would strike with the evident intention of spearing the 

 gannet down the throat. But the gannet was always a little 

 too quick, and in the end he revenged himself on the crane's 

 legs. He used also to punish that notorious bully, the black 

 swan, till only interference saved the swan's life. Yet the 

 keeper said that the slow, unwieldy European pelican was the 

 master even among these fighting characters. 



In this country we have two pelicans differing much in color 

 and in habits. The white .pelican is more abundant in the 



