APR 10 1917 



THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. 



"Vol. XL OTTAWA, AUGUST, 1897. No. 5. 



THE PELICAN. 



By Professor Edward E. Prince, 

 Dominion Commissioner of Fisheries, Ottawa. 



Of all ungainly birds the pelican ( Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, 

 Gmelin) seems to be the most ungainly and awkward. Its huge 

 beak with swollen .gular pouch is so disproportionate when 

 compared with the small size of the head, while the head and 

 beak together appear to completely overbalance the short squat 

 body. When seen alive in zoological gardens its actions are far 

 from graceful. It waddles about its wire netting enclosure, 

 clumsily moving the head from side to side, and dipping fre- 

 quently into the miniature pond, hoarsely screaming, and 

 heavily flapping its long wings, the very emblem of uncouth 

 awkwardness. It is, indeed, difficult to realise that this solitary 

 bird of the desert has any graceful features at all. 



Such an impression is far from the truth. No doubt the 

 pelican resorts to remote waters, and shuns the company of man. 

 Out on the secluded lakes of the vast prairie country or along 

 certain stretches of unfrequented rivers of the north, it makes its 

 home. I had recently the opportunity (early in September), 

 which few visitors to the border of the Barren Lands can forego, 

 of shooting the Grand Rapids of the Big Saskatchewan, and saw 

 on that occasion the pelican in its natural habitat. The Grand 

 Rapids, it is hardly necessary to say, occur just before the noble 

 Saskatchewan debouches into Lake Winnipeg towards the north 

 end of that lake. As our spacious York boat, manned by four 

 swampy Cree Indians, danced down the swift current, bouncing 

 over boiling whirlpools, and plunging past swirling eddies, we 



