Molina's Pelican (Pelecanus thagus). 417 



they can perform this ejaculatory operation is taken advan- 

 tage of not only by the Gulls and Terns, which mercilessly 

 bully the hapless and helpless innocents, and so fare sump- 

 tuously during the season of these birds^ infancy, but by 

 the fishermen in need of bait, who, taking a lesson from the 

 sea-fowls, waylay the old birds on their arrival at dusk and, 

 by scaring thera, often secure from a single individual the 

 best part of a bucketful. I have been told that 8 lbs. of 

 fish is not an uncommon quantity to be ejected by a bird 

 that has been out on only a short fishing excursion. 



At what age and in what plumage the young Pelicans fare 

 forth to the sea ''on their own,^^ 1 am unable to state from 

 personal obervation. It seems probable that they do not 

 tyke to the water till some time after they are able to fly. 

 It seems also that the white down stage is replaced by pure 

 white feathers on the head and neck, in association with a 

 pure white under-surface. The youngest flying birds, or what 

 seem to be so, which I examined were in this plumage. In 

 the next stage, assumed probably the year following their 

 birth, or even tiie year after that, the white neck is replaced 

 by a sooty-grey one and a partially striped under-surface ; 

 and this garb again, but at what age I am unable to state, by 

 the deep black hind neck with a white margin to the yellow- 

 bordered gular sac, and a fully-striped abdominal region ; 

 this cannot be assumed before the bird's third year at 

 earliest, but it may be donned later. The specimen 

 (No. 475, PI. XIII. fig. 4), which I consider to be in fullest 

 nuptial plumage, does not possess so fully-developed a crest, 

 nor has it the same amount of yellow on the neck as one 

 (No, 459, PI. XIII. fig. 2) which seems to me to be a 

 younger bird, though both were captured during the same 

 incubation period and on the same nesting area. The 

 accompanying plate represents the head and neck of four 

 individuals in the order of what I believe to be their ages. 



In April and May the parents certainly, and doubtless 

 many of the young, disperse widely along the coast, 

 although the islands are at no time anything like denuded 

 of Pelicans. They frequent the shores of this stormless 



