198 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



faH that they may have their pouches half filled with fish. They 

 are great gluttons. In some of the Bahama isles I have ob- 

 served as many as fifty Brown pelicans in one flock, with others 

 on the water fishing. On the coasts of Cuba and Hayti and the 

 Mosquito coast of Mexico, I have observed both species. In 

 southeastern Europe and the adjacent countries of Asia and 

 Africa they have a species of pelican (P. onocrotalus) much re- 

 sembling our White pelican. Some ten or a dozen other kinds 

 are found in various parts of the w r orld. I have described the 

 bones of a fossil pelican from Oregon, and similar remains have 

 been found in England. P. onocrotalus was well known to the an- 

 cients, and was frequently figured on their monuments. 



Some very interesting birds of the suborder ^tenanopodes are 

 the relatives of our pelicans in the avifauna of this country. 

 There are in the first place the two species of Tropic birds of the 

 genus Pl}actlion\ then there are six species of gannets (Sula) ; 

 the curious Snake bird, also known as the Darter or Anhinga 

 (AnJiinga) ; at least eleven different kinds of cormorants (Plia- 

 lacrocorov) : and finally the famous Man-o'-War bird (Frcyata 



According to Newton, the Tropic birds have been so called by 

 " sailors from early times, because, as Dampier (Toy. i, p. 53), 

 among others, testifies, it is " never seen far without either Trop- 

 ick," and hence, indulging a pretty fancy, Linnaeus bestowed 

 upon it the generic term, continued by modern writers, of Phaeton, 

 in allusion to its attempt to follow the path of the sun. There 

 are certainly three well-marked species of this genus, but their 

 respective geographical ranges have not yet been definitely laid 

 down. All of them can be easily known by their totipalmate 

 condition, in which the four toes of each foot are united by a web, 

 and by the great length of the two middle tail-quills, which pro- 

 ject beyond the rest, so as to have gained for the birds the names 

 of "Rabijunco," "Paille-en-queue," and "Pijlstaart," among mar- 

 iners of different nations. These birds fly to a great distance 

 from land and seem to be attracted by ships, frequently hovering 

 round or even settling on a mast-head. 



" The Yellow-billed Tropic-bird, P. flavirostris or candiflus, ap- 

 pears to have habitually the most northerly, as well, perhaps, as 

 the widest range, visiting Bermuda yearly to breed there, but 

 also occurring numerously in the southern Atlantic, the Indian 

 and a great part of the Pacific Ocean, In some islands of all 



