S88 Contributions to the Ornithology of India, 8fc. 



lifted. The shafts of the first five primaries are entirely black, 

 those of the suhsequest ones black on their basal portion. 

 The tail feathers white, the basal portions black shafted, and 

 the lateral tail feathers mostly with an arrow head bar or spot 

 near the tip. The female is precisely similar to the male. 



We certainly saw fifty birds of this species, and to the best 

 of my belief none of these differed materially from the six 

 obtained, and I watched them off and on for some hours, witfe 

 binoculars^ at short distances. If these are, as I conclude them 

 to be_, the young- of P. athereus, this is another instance of 

 what is so commonly noticed, viz., the young of a species, 

 extending their wanderings much further than the adults do. 



1001— Pelicanus onocrotalus, L. 



I only clearly identified this pelican on one occasion in Sindh, 

 and then I came across in the Madho Dhund, in Upper Sindh, 

 a flock which, I should guess, contained some thousands. In an 

 early number I hope to produce a paper on the pelicans of India, 

 and shall at present therefore say nothing further about them. 



1004.— Pelicanus philippensis, Gmel. 



I saw a few, and only a few, of this species in Sindh. 



1004 &^5.— Pelicanus crispus, Bruch. 



I have already noticed how wonderfully abundant this species 

 is in Sindh and along the whole Mekran Coast. This is the 

 pelican that the fishermen on all the inland waters keep tame. 

 As with the herons, so with the pelicans, they generally sew up 

 the eyes, and fasten them by a string tied to the- leg to the roots 

 of some bunch of rushes or a stake driven in below water level. 

 They thus serve as decoys to other water-fowl who, knowing 

 how wary pelicans usually are, readily settle where they see one 

 or more of these birds sailing slowly about backwards and for- 

 wards, and are thus netted or captured in other ways. These 

 pelicans serve the fishermen, who are fowlers also, in another 

 way : they skin them carefully, and cutting away the abdomen, 

 in fact the greater portion that would be below water-level in 

 the live bird, line the skin with a frame of thin basket work.. 

 They are very clever in mounting the birds, especially in dyeing 

 the pouch and coloring it with turmeric so as to look exactly as 

 in the live bird, and also in imitating the - eyes which they 

 manufacture out of lac. When ready, the fisherman places it 

 on his head, gets into the water, and progresses slowly and softly, 

 making the skin which conceals his head, sail about in the 

 water in the most natural way imaginable, until he reaches the 

 spot when some of his blinded and tethered pelicans are sur- 



