416 Dr. H. O. Forbes : Notes on 



callow condition, and are of a pale flesh-colour^ thus differing 

 markedly from those of the Brown Pelican (P. fuscus) 

 which, according to Chapman, are livid black. Within a fort- 

 night they are completely endowed with a short fine white 

 down, which remains their garb for a period wliich I was 

 unable to determine exactly. Their black feathers begin to 

 appear on the wings, dorsum, and tail, a condition iu which 

 the nestlings are encountered wandering from their cradle, 

 when they appear, if viewed from a little distance, to be 

 pure white birds with black alar quills and a very conspicuous 

 black cordate spot in the middle of the back. At this stage 

 their irides are extraordmarily variable : no two are quite 

 alike in this respect. The iris in youth would seem to be 

 of a lighter or darker shade of yellow, and at a more 

 advanced age it varies from grey to very dark brown. The 

 above-mentioned black and white phase was the garb in which 

 I found the immature Pelicans when I reached the Lobos 

 group (6° 30' S. lat.) in February 1913. The young birds 

 had then all vacated the nesting area and had waddled their 

 way over very uneven ground to the little beaches and rocks 

 by the sea-margin on which they pottered about the livelong 

 day, on the alert for the return of their parents from the 

 sea with supplies. When I left the islands in the middle of 

 March, they were still little changed in plumage, and were 

 still being fed by their parents in the extraordinary manner 

 which, as is well known, the Steganopodes practise. Well 

 known as it is, it is always most interesting to a naturalist 

 to be spectator of these curious habits, for the first time 

 especially. The young ones, often two or three at once, 

 sometimes all own brothers and sisters, sometimes in part 

 or even all of them neighbours and aliens in blood, insert 

 their entire head into the gaping mouth of the returned 

 food-bringer, which has to prostrate itself on its belly to 

 allow the freest access to her (or his) capacious store- 

 chamber. The young birds hold very lightly to their repastj 

 for on the slightest alarm they eject it in order to lighten 

 their bodies for escape, which, as they cannot fly, can only 

 be at a goose-step pace. The wonderful ease with which 



