THR CONDOR 



Vol. IX 



lasts till Angnst and September when the young are al)le to care for themselves. In 

 June and July when we visited the colonies, the young were able to walk and swim 

 about, but the wing feathers had not yet developed flying strength, for the birds 

 were still in the downy stage. 



It takes about a month for the pelican to hatch its eggs, and the baby pelican 

 is naked, helpless and ugly, and has to be shielded from the sun by its mother. Its 

 ugliness increases with age till the youngster is covered with white down. The 

 young birds stick clore to the nesting site where they are fed by the parents, until, 



when about six weeks old, 

 they begin to run about 

 and mingle with the other 

 young birds. 



It would be difficult to tell 

 how an old pelican can recog- 

 nize her own, but she seems 

 to do it, for nesting is not a 

 communal matter. As soon 

 as an old bird alighted in the 

 rookery, she was besieged by 

 half a dozen young ones, but 

 I never saw one of the 

 parents feed till she had ap- 

 parently made some selection 

 as to the young. 



The half grown pelicans 

 stood around with their 

 mouths open, panting like a 

 lot of dogs after the chase on 

 a hot day, their pouches 

 shaken at every breath. 

 When we went near one of 

 the colonies, the youngsters 

 went tottering off on their 

 big webbed feet with wings 

 dragging on this side and 

 that as if they were poorly- 

 handled crutches. The first 

 thing they did when we ap- 

 proached was to vomit up fish 

 and then stagger on with the 

 crowd. Following along after a band of young pelicans was as bad as crossing a 

 battlefield where the victims were fish, for the carcasses were strewn all along in 

 the wake of the procession. The youngsters huddled together by hundreds in a 

 small space. Those on the outside pushed and climbed to get nearer the center, 

 till it looked worse than any football scrimmage I ever saw. I watched one large 

 bird rush for the center, bucking over three or four others and finally landing 

 astraddle the neck of another. When we went nearer, those on the outside began 

 to circle the ends and around and around the whole mass revolved as it moved off. 

 Soon after the little gluttons retraced their steps to pick up the fish dinners that 

 had been left behind. 



One might wonder how such a huge-billed bird could feed a helpless young 



HALF-GROWN YOUNG PELICAN WITH WING OUILLS PARTLY 

 GROWN, BUT BODY YET COVERED WITH DOWN 



