DALMATIAN PELICAN. 133 



tlieir ground you may kill as many as you like. They fly gracefully 

 and lightly, and describe as many circles as the Gulls. I have never 

 seen them fishing together, but they seem to like the company of 

 the Cormorant. When they have stuffed themselves with food, they 

 may be seen sitting and resting on the low rocks along the shores of 

 the sea." 



Lord Lilford says it is common in the Ionian Islands throughout 

 the year, on the coasts of Epirus, and that it breeds at Suttanich, 

 on the Gulf of Arta.— (" Ibis," ii., p. 355.) Mr. W. H. Simpson also 

 met with it in Western Greece, and gives the following graphic 

 description :-;-" Time was, and not so long ago, when Pelecanus 

 crispus lived in hundreds all the year round, from the rocky pro- 

 montory of Kourtzolari, hard by the mouth of the Acheloiis, on the 

 western extremity of the lagoon, to the islands of jEtolieo, up its 

 northern arms, and on the east to the great mud flats which mark 

 the limits of the present delta of the Phidaris. Now-a-days a solitary 

 individual may be seen fishing here and there throughout the lagoon, 

 but the small remnant of this once mighty host have made their last 

 stand upon the islands which divide the Gulf of Procopanisto from 

 the Gulf of jEtolieo. Here, towards the end of February last, the 

 community of Pelicans constructed a group of seven nests, — a sad 

 falling off" from 1838, when thirty-five nests (the remains of which 

 had not then disappeared) were grouped in contiguous proximity 

 upon a neighbouring islet. It needs not the nose of a pointer to 

 discover the locality, even if the large white birds themselves were not 

 a sufficient guide. As we approached the spot in a boat the Pelicans 

 left their nests, and, taking to the water, sailed away like a fleet of 

 stately ships, leaving their newly built establishment in possession 

 of the invader. The boat grounded in two or three feet of mud, 

 and when the party had floundered through this, the seven nests 

 were discovered to be empty. A fisherman had plundered them that 

 morning, taking from each nest one e^^, all of which we of course 

 recovered. The nests were constructed in a great measure of the 

 old reed palings used by the natives for enclosing the fish, though 

 with these were mixed such pieces of the vegetation of the islet as 

 were suitable for the purpose. The seven nests were contiguous, and 

 disposed in the shape of an irregular cross, the navel of the cross, 

 which was the tallest nest, being about thirty inches high, the two 

 next in line on each side being about two feet high, the two nests 

 forming each arm of the cross a few inches lower, and the two 

 extremes at either end being about fourteen inches from the ground. 

 These latter, it is presumed, were intended for the junior partners 



