WHITE PELICAN. 139 



recently, was given to the museum of Palermo by Signor Eusebio 

 Panvini Mortillaro. During the autumnal passage of these birds in 

 Sicily one may often see them accompanied by the young birds of 

 the year, and one of the latter, taken near Catania, clothed in its 

 primitive ashy dress, is found in the beautiful ornithological collection 

 of Baron Anteri. It occurs accidentally in Sardinia." 



Salvadori (Fauna d'ltalia) writes of this bird: — "This Pelican is 

 taken accidentally in Italy, and at intervals more or less long it has 

 been seen in every part. Sometimes it appears in numerous flocks, as 

 recorded by Savi and others, and as happened in the spring of 1858, 

 when a flock of upwards of one hundred individuals appeared on 

 the Po near Casali. Exhausted by hunger and fatigue they were 

 nearly all killed, even with sticks. Four individuals taken alive were 

 carried into the' royal park of Stupinigi. Althammer adds that 

 similar appearances are not rare on the Po, Mincio, and Lombano 

 Lakes, (' Naumannia,' 1858, p. 167.) Some years a flock of six or 

 seven individuals descend upon the mouths of the river Tenna, upon 

 the Adriatic shores, and three were killed by a single shot. From 

 the state of exhaustion and fatigue in which they come amongst us, 

 they appear to have been driven into Italy by contrary winds, which 

 surprised them during their voyage. It is common in Egypt, in Sona, 

 and Eastern Europe." 



At one time almost all Pelicans fell under Brisson's name of 

 onocratulus, and Nuttall has given a long description of this bird 

 as an inhabitant of America. It does not, however, I believe, occur 

 there, the two American species being P. trachyrhyncTius of Latham, 

 and the P. fuscus, or Brown Pelican, of Linnseus. 



The White Pelican is very similar in its breeding habits to its 

 congener and very near ally, P. crispus. It nests among water plants, 

 generally on the ground, or among the thick herbage, and lays two 

 or three large white eggs, the surface of which is rough and 

 calcareous. 



The male in breeding plumage is white, tinged with rose, and 

 with a long occipital crest; the crop yellowish, and the primaries 

 black; beak bluish grey in the middle and above and below on its 

 posterior half, the rest yellow, becoming whiter near the tip, with 

 the lateral bands, borders of the mandibles, and the nail, red; the 

 naked part on the face flesh-coloured, with the front swollen, forming 

 an oval brick red protuberance; the pouch yellow ochre, veined with 

 bluish red; lower part of thighs, tarsi, and toes rose, shaded anteriorly 

 and in the articulation with orange; iris dark sealing-wax red, with 

 whitish rays, and the conjunction projecting, and of an orange red. 



