A VISIT TO A BREEDING-PLACE OF THE PELICAN. 257 
with the following results :—Of course the number of eggs upon 
each island depends upon its size. The largest islands might 
have been occupied by twenty or thirty breeding-birds, but quite 
small ones, sufficing only for one bird each, were quite as 
numerous. Now these islands are more or less composed of 
reed-fragments, often without any fresh vegetation, often also 
bordered by green rushes and other high plants. The aspect of 
the large white eggs shining through the green all round is very 
charming when seen from the middle of the lake. But when 
closely inspected the places look very dirty and slovenly. The 
smell was bearable, the process of fermentation and putrefaction 
being generally over—a sign that the birds had not laid since the 
7th instant. Generally there were two eggs in a nest, but there 
were also plenty of single ones. Nearly half as many eggs as 
were lying on the islands were floating on the surrounding water. 
The latter keeps sending up air-bubbles, by which it is kept 
in constant commotion, no doubt produced by the substances 
putrifying at the bottom. The eggs were in all stages of hatching, 
but in most of them the young birds were very fully developed, 
so that we had some trouble to find a number which could yet be 
blown. The eggs which our chassewr had taken on the 7th were, 
on the average, far less advanced, and it does not seem to us at 
all improbable that the heat of the sun may have had some 
influence upon the abandoned eggs; at least to a certain extent. 
Our doubts as to the species of Pelican were gradually set at rest. 
Almost on every island, perhaps with the exception of five or six 
only, there were lying beside the eggs putrefying and putrefied 
young specimens of Pelecanus onocrotalus in down—not a single 
P. crispus. This, in connection with the fact that on the 7th 
inst. our chasseur had shot the four P. onocrotalus upon their 
nests, makes us certain of the genuineness of the eggs. The 
young of P. crispus, which are now moving about here, may 
very possibly have come over on their own account from 
another neighbouring colony. ‘The cause of the desertion of 
this breeding-place must doubtless be looked for in the want 
of sufficient nourishment for these voracious birds; fish are 
anything but plentiful this year. The arrival of Ferdinand 
with the two Russians may also have had some effect, because 
their visit doubtless did not pass off without the expenditure 
of a good deal of powder. ‘The shyness of the older birds 
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