124 The Stork-like Birds 



and discordant screaming, which soon grows unbearable. The sharp beak with 

 serrated edges is not to be despised, and the enraged bird will sometimes use it 

 to good advantage. The Bow's'n-birds keep up their strident cries so long as 

 one meddles with them, but if left undisturbed will soon quiet down. When- 

 ever we inadvertent!^ passed near one hidden under a chenopodium bush, we 

 soon became aware of its presence by its cry of defiance. To see these birds 

 at their best one must watch them flying about in the bright sunshine, when their 

 pale, salmon-pink plumage shines as though burnished, and the satiny feathers 

 stand out like scales. The two long, red tail-feathers are possessed by both 

 sexes, and the female is only a trifle less pink than the male. Usually when 

 flying about they were quiet, and progressed by short, nervous wing-beats, never 

 attempting to sail. Occasionally, however, they swooped about our heads and 

 made the neighborhood lively. The nest is merely a hollow in the sand, with a 

 few grass straws and leaves gathered in the bottom. The single egg is brooded 

 by both parents, each of which sits upon it with the wings slightly opened." The 

 Yellow Tropic-bird (P. fulvus) has the general color of the plumage, a rich salmon 

 inclining to orange. It is found only about Christmas Island, in the Indian 

 Ocean, where of its habits Mr. C. W. Andrews writes as follows: "The flight of 

 these birds is swift, though, owing to the rapidity of the strokes of the wing, it 

 seems as if they were laboring. I never saw them sail except for a short distance 

 when wheeling around. On hot days they may be seen in twos and threes, flying 

 rapidly up and down above and among the tree-tops, continually uttering their 

 peculiar cackling cry, and pausing now and then to hover before holes in the 

 trees which seem to offer an eligible position for a nest. It can hardly be said, 

 however, that they make a nest, for the single, dark brown mottled egg is merely 

 placed in a slight hollow on the floor of a hole in a tree or in the sea cliff." 



THE PELICANS 



(Family Pelecanidce) 



The next family in order comprises the curious and interesting Pelicans. 

 They are, as is well known, birds of large size, ranging in length from about fifty 

 to some seventy-two inches. They have short legs, very large wiags which often 

 spread nearly ten feet, for they are strong fliers, and a tail of twenty-two or twenty- 

 four rather short, soft feathers. The most marked peculiarity is of course the 

 huge pouch which depends from the lower mandible, forming, as it has often 

 been called, a regular scoop-net. The length of the bill in some species is fully 

 eighteen inches, though the average length is only about fourteen or fifteen inches. 

 As the bird is seen at rest on the ground it presents a very awkward and grotesque 

 appearance, the neck being held in what would seem to be a very uncomfortable 

 and "kinked" position, but an examination of the skeleton reveals the fact that 

 the eighth or ninth vertebra is curiously articulated with the one in front and the 

 one next behind it, so that it is actually impossible for the neck to be held straight. 

 In at least one species, the White Pelican (P. erythrorhynchos] of North America, 



