64 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES. 



was discovered, and we cannot get a better idea of the way in 

 which sea-birds formerly thronged the prairie than by quot- 

 ing from the original discoverer, Mr. Kobert Bidgway. In 

 July, 1867, Mr. Bidgway visited Pyramid Lake, Nevada, and 

 saw the whole beach covered " with a dense crowd of these 

 gigantic snow-white creatures, who scarcely heeded us as we 

 arose ; as we approached them, however, they pushed one 

 another awkwardly into the water, or rose heavily and con- 

 fusedly from the ground, and flying some distance out upon 

 the lake, alighted upon the water." 



The next year, in May, when Mr. Bidgway returned, he was 

 surprised to find most of the pelicans had a " conspicuous 

 prominence on the top of the upper mandible, known among 

 the white people of the neighborhood as the 'centre-board,' 

 so called from some fancied resemblance to the centre-board of 

 a sailboat. At this season both sexes were highly colored, the 

 naked soft skin of the face and feet being fiery orange-red, or 

 almost blood-red, instead of pale, ashy straw-yellow, as in all, 

 both old and young, in August. . . . Soon the number of 

 birds distinguished by the ' centre-board ? daily decreased, 

 while, to account for this phenomenon, a corresponding num- 

 ber of the cast-off ones was found upon the ground. Some of 

 these loosened ornaments had been but recently dropped, as 

 was plainly shown by their freshness, while others, which had 

 been cast for some time, were dry and warped by the sun. 

 Toward the last of the month no birds possessing this excres- 

 cence were to be seen, but the appendages themselves were 

 scattered so numerously over the ground that a bushel could 

 have been gathered in a short time, though upon our first 

 arrival in the island not one was to be seen." 



