Field Notes 291 



" WMle going to Sioux City Sunday morning with his family, tlie 

 editor saw several hundred Pelicans i-oaring over South Sioux City. 

 We returned home by the way of Jackson. Between Jaclvson and 

 South Sioux City the highway was strewn with dead Pelicans. They 

 had evidently soared low and killed themselves by flying into the 

 telephone wires.'' 



Mr. Ira Waddell, a farmer living near the northwestern end of 

 Crystal lake, in Nebraska, across the Missouri river from Sioux 

 City, la., informed Mr. George Ludcke, of Sioux City, a hunter 

 who has a hunting lodge at McCoolf lake, that during the week be- 

 ginning Septembem 20 he saw a number of dead White Pelicans 

 along the road between South Sioux City and his home. He esti- 

 mated that he probably saw seventeen or eighteen of the birds. He 

 assumed that the birds had been shot and thrown aside, although 

 he made no examination to ascertain the manner of their death. 

 The country in the vicinity is wooded. There are no telephone or 

 other wires along the road which could have caused the death of 

 the Pelicans by accident, ^Nlr. Waddell stated. If there had been 

 such wires, iNfr. Waddell added, the trees would have prevented the 

 birds from flying low enough to have been harmed by them. 



Mr. Emmet C. Higgins. of Omaba. an inspector for the United 

 States Biological Survey, under date of October 9. wrote to Dr. T. 

 S. Palmer, of the I'nited states Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington, that he had investigated the death of these Peli- 

 cans and found death due to strikin.; telephone wires in the vi- 

 cinity of Dakota City. Nebraska. Mr. Higgins stated that about 

 fifty birds in all had been killed, and that he found seventeen dead 

 birds in a radius of two miles. The birds, Mr. Higgins said, seemed 

 to have been killed on or about Sunday, October 4. 



Mr. Higgins. in a letter to Prof. T. C. Stephens, of Morningside 

 College, Sioux City, under date of October 16, stated that he had 

 examined seventeen of the Pelicans found dead near Dakota City 

 and had discovered no indications of gunshot wounds upon them. 

 Mr. Higgins' conclusion was that the deaths were due to striking 

 the telephone wires. 



, It is impossible for me. with the facts in hand, to reconcile the 

 conflicting testimony as to how the I'elicans were killed. It is a 

 common practice for a certain type of hunters in this vicinity, 

 however, and has been for many years, to shoot these birds. These 

 hunters make no concealment of this practice. The birds offer a 

 good target, and that is sufficient for them. Generally the birds 

 are left where shot, although an occasional specimen is brought to 

 the city and mounted. 



Sioux City, la., Nov. 18, 1014. A. F. Allen. 



