80 MR. D. G. ELLIOT ON THE GENUS PELECANUS. [Nov. 25, 
o 
This is the common species of the Old World, and was known to 
the earliest writers on ornithology. It goes at times in great flocks, 
as witnessed by W. H. Simpson, who states, in the ‘ Ibis,’ vol. in. 
p- 366, that he once saw a flock of these birds, numbering several 
thousand individuels, flying northward in the Dobrudscha. 
The female constructs her nest upon the ground, formed of reeds 
and lined with soft grass, and lays usually two white eggs. The 
present bird does not confine itself to the shores of the sea, but fre- 
quents inland lakes and rivers; feeds principally upon fish, and at 
the approach of winter migrates in immense flocks. 
Very great confusion exists in the synonymy of this species, the 
difficulty in the majority of instances arising from the uncertainty as 
to whether there are two species—one with a lengthened occipital 
pendent crest, which would appear to be a smaller bird, and the 
other without any crest properly so-called, the feathers of the occiput 
merely curling slightly upward. 
During the breeding-season, however, the present bird, the true 
P. onocrotalus of Linn., has a somewhat lengthened occipital crest, 
and at such times, in this respect, it does not differ materially from 
its smaller ally, this crest at other periods of the year being incon- 
spicuous. But there is a slight difference in the width and extent 
of the line made by the feathers which come down upon the fore- 
head. In the present species it ends abruptly with little lessening 
of the width, while in the smaller bird it is long and narrow, ending 
in almost a sharp point. 
I have placed Mr. Gould’s P. onocrotalus, in ‘ Birds of Europe,’ 
with a %, as, giving no dimensions in his text, and his figure not 
being life-size and showing the crest somewhat lengthened, it is 
rather difficult to say to which bird it should be referred. Dr. Jerdon 
thinks that Bree has figured the P. mztratus for the present species 
in his ‘ Birds of Europe;’ but as Dr. Bree states that an example in 
the Zoological Society’s Gardens in London was the original of his 
plate, it is probably the present species, as the P. mitratus was not 
in the Society’s possession at that time. The P. javanicus of Blyth’s 
‘Catalogue’ of the Asiatic Society may perhaps be assigned to this 
species, as he refers it to Stephens’s plate in Shaw’s ‘ General Zoology,’ 
which does not give any of the black margins of the tertiaries, one 
of the characteristics of the bird described by Horsfield. 
PELECANUS MINOR. 
Pelecanus minor, Riipp. Vog. Nord-Ost-Afrika’s (1845), tab. 49, 
p- 140; id. Mus. Sencken. Band ii. p. 185 (1837); Reich. Syst. Av. 
i. t. 37. figs. 2321, 2322. 
P. mitratus, Licht. Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berl. (1838) 436, t. 3. 
f. 2; Reich. Syst. Av. vol. i. t. 38. figs. 879, 880?; Blyth, Ibis (1867), 
p- 178; Sclat. P.Z.S. (1868), p. 266; Jerd. B. of Ind. vol. iii. p. 856. 
P. onocrotalus, Bon. Consp. ii. p. 162; Layard, B. of South Af- 
rica; Blyth, Cat. Birds Mus. Asiat. Soc. Beng. p. 297. sp. 1740. 
P. megalophus, Heugl. Vég. Nord-Ost-Afrik. (1856) p. 72. 
no. 1750. 
