92 AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN. 
wards, the fish was swallowed. After thus swimming for about an_ 
hundred yards in an extended line, and parallel to cach other, they 
would rise on wing, wheel about, and realight at the place where their 
fishing had commenced, when they would repeat the same actions. 
They kept farther from the shore than the Brown Pelicans, and in deeper 
water, though at times one of the latter would dive after fish close to 
some of them, without their shewing the least degree of: enmity to- 
wards each other. I continued watching them more than an hour, 
concealed among a large quantity of drifted logs, until their fishing 
was finished, when they all, White and Brown together, flew off to the 
lee of another island, no doubt to spend the night there, for these birds 
are altogether diurnal. When gorged, they retire to the shores, to 
small islands in bays or rivers, or sit on logs floating in shallow water, 
at a good distance from the beach; in all which situations they are 
prone to lie down, or stand closely together. 
Being anxious, when on my last expedition, to procure several speci- 
mens of these birds for the purpose of presenting you with an account of 
their anatomical structure, I requested all on board our vessel to shoot 
them on.all occasions; but no birds having been procured, I was ob- 
liged to set out with a “ select party” for the purpose. Having heard 
some of the sailors say that large flocks of White Pelicans had been seen 
on the inner islets of Barataria Bay, within the island called Grande 
Terre, we had a boat manned, and my friend Epwarp Harris, my son, 
and myself, went off in search of them. After a while we saw large 
flocks of these birds on some grounded logs, but found that it was no 
easy matter to get near them, on account of the shallowness of the 
bay, the water being scarcely two feet in depth for upwards of half a 
mile about us. Quietly, and with all possible care, we neared a flock ; 
and strange it was for me to be once more within shooting distance of 
White Pelicans. It would no doubt be a very interesting sight to you, 
were you to mark the gravity and sedateness of some hundreds of these 
Pelicans, closely huddled together on a heap of stranded logs, or a 
small bank of racoon oysters. They were lying on their breasts, but 
as we neared them they all arose deliberately to their full height. 
Some, gently sliding from the logs, swam off towards the nearest 
flock, as unapprehensive of danger as if they had been a mile distant. 
But now their bright eyes were distinctly visible to us, our guns, 
