256 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
aware of our hostile intentions. Now it cruised about cleverly 
on the little “liman,” and several times escaped by turning 
sideways when we were within a yard or so of it; but the 
continued paddling tired it at last, and it seemed to yield to its 
fate. Then suddenly it seemed to wish to hide in the water, 
because it dived down deeply with its beak, inflating its gular 
pouch widely. This process it repeated three times, which 
interested us so much that for some minutes we gave up the 
pursuit. But at the third dive it opened its beak widely, and to 
our surprise forced out a mass of small fish; and soon afterwards 
a second and a third lot, evidently trying to lighten itself, and 
again made attempts to fly, but was again unsuccessful. A few 
minutes later we drew the poor thing into our boat. Here it 
behaved very boisterously, snapped at us and struck out with its 
wings. This caused our “nutshell” to sway to and fro in a 
threatening manner, so that we had to bind the creature to keep 
it quiet. We next turned to the water-lilies, in the hope of 
finding nests of Sterna hybrida, in which hope we were not 
disappointed. But most of the nests were empty; in some four 
or five only were there eggs—three in each—nearly incubated. 
The nests stood upon the large floating leaves, generally hidden by 
other leaves, forming a screen above them. The whole breeding- 
place is only a labyrinth of leaves and stems of Nymphea. After 
searching for awhile we found several young birds in down. These 
eraceful little creatures were already complete adepts on the liquid 
element, and with wonderful agility swam about, chirping. Five 
of them we took with us alive, and we also shot some old birds, 
so as to be quite certain there was no error in our identification 
of the species. Then we began taking the Pelican’s eggs. We 
were surprised, as we have said, at the number of young specimens 
of Pelecanus crispus. Only two young P. onocrotalus, in downy 
plumage, were found. Now of what species are the eggs? Do 
P. crispus and P. onocrotalus breed in company here? This 
is hardly to be supposed, because, according to former observa- 
tions, the two species are said to keep strictly apart. On the 
7th inst. our chasseur found the colony well stocked with P. onoero- 
talus, both breeding-birds and young ones in all stages of 
development (there were also some young of P. crispus, but they 
were already fledged). Now where have the young ones got to ? 
We examined most of the islands with the keenest attention, and 
