94 AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN. 
species, are apt to snap at objects which they appear to know perfectly | 
to be so far superior to them as to disdain taking notice of them. 
Their usual manner of flight is precisely similar to that of our Brown 
species. It is said byauthors that the White Pelican can alight on trees; 
but I have never seen a single instance of its doing so. I am of opi- 
nion that the ridge projecting from the upper mandible increases in 
size as the bird grows older, and that it uses that apparatus as a means 
of defence or of attack, when engaged with its rivals in the love- 
season. 
The number of small fishes destroyed by a single bird of this spe- 
cies may appear to you, as it did to me, quite extraordinary. While 
I was at General Hzernanvez’s plantation in East Florida, one of 
them chanced to pass close over the house of my generous host, 
and was brought dead to the ground. It was not a mature bird; but 
apparently about eighteen months old. On opening it, we found in its 
stomach several hundreds of fishes, of the size of what are usually 
called minnows. Among the many which I have at different times exa- 
mined, I never found one containing fishes as large as those commonly 
swallowed by the Brown species, which, in my opinion, is more likely 
to secure a large fish by plunging upon it from on wing, than a bird 
which must swim after its prey. 
This beautiful species,—for, Reader, it is truly beautiful, and you 
would say so were you to pick it up in all the natural cleanness of its 
plumage, from the surface of the water,—carries its crest broadly ex- 
panded, as if divided into two parts from the centre of the head. The 
brightness of its eyes seemed to me to rival that of the purest diamond ; 
and in the love season, or the spring of the year, the orange-red colour 
of its legs and feet, as well as of the pouch and bill, is wonderfully en- 
riched, being as represented in my plate, while during the autumnal 
months these parts are pale. Its flesh is rank, fishy, and nauseous, 
and therefore quite unfit for food, unless in cases of extreme necessity. 
The idea that these birds are easily caught when gorged with fish, is 
quite incorrect, for when approached, on such an occasion, they throw 
up their food, as Vultures are wont to do. 
I regret exceedingly that I cannot say any thing respecting their 
nests, eggs, or young, as I have not been in the countries in which 
they are said to breed. 
