201 



very clever in mounting the birds, especially in dyeing the pouch and colouring it with turmeric 

 so as to look exactly as in the live bird, and also in imitating the eyes, which they manufacture 

 out of lac. When ready, the fisherman places it on his head, gets into the water, and progresses 

 slowly and softly, making the skin which conceals his head sail about in the water in the most 

 natural way imaginable, until he rea.ches the spot where some of his blinded and tethered 

 Pelicans are surrounded by wild water-fowl, which he adroitly pulls under water without in the 

 slightest degree disturbing the rest. Sometimes, we are told, he drags with him a piece of double 

 rope, twisted, with a stone or weight fastened to it. Each bird as it is caught has the neck thrust 

 between the twists of the rope ; and thus as many as twenty will be captured at a single trip. 

 Some have a light cord fastened round the loins, between which and their bodies they thrust the 

 neck. In either case they kill the duck almost instantaneously by a sharp twist of the neck. I 

 never myself saw the ducks thus caught ; but a man put on the Pelican helmet, and made it sail 

 about before me in such wise that, even when quite close, it was difficult to believe that it was 

 not a living bird." 



Mr. Butler remarks that he saw this Pelican between Cutch and Pacham, on the western 

 coast of Kattiawar, and that it also occurs as far east as the Ganges Doab, where he shot it 

 near Etawah. 



How far east it ranges I cannot say. Swinhoe affirms that it occurs at Amoy ; but MM. 

 David and Oustalet refer the species obtained by Swinhoe to Pelecanus philippensis. 



I have seen the Dalmatian Pelican as well as its ally Pelecanus onocrotalus on the Lower 

 Danube, but had but little opportunity of observing its habits. I used generally to see them 

 ranged in a long row along the banks of the Danube, where they used to allow us to approach 

 tolerably close, and would take wing only when we were well within gunshot range. 



Mr. Artzibascheff (Exc. Orn. Sarpa, pp. 93-99), who visited the breeding-places of this 

 Pelican on the Sarpa, gives an excellent account of its habits and nidification, which I translate 

 as follows : — " The Dalmatian Pelican nests on some of the lakes of the Southern Sarpa. When 

 I was there they made choice of the Khana and Tsaga-nour, constructing a huge nest of reeds and 

 aquatic herbage, which they frequently bring from a considerable distance; and it is a queer 

 sight to see these birds flying and carrying a large bundle of reeds in their beaks. The nest is 

 built in a shallow part of the water, without being always near the rushes. On this nest of 

 reeds, which is not unfrequently \\ metre above the surface, one can see the separate nesting- 

 spots where each female deposits her eggs ; and I have seen one of these rookeries tenanted by 

 thirty families or more, which presents a curious sight whilst the birds are sitting. The eggs 

 are deposited in April or May, and are generally two or three, and but rarely four in number. . . . 

 When fresh laid, the eggs are always bloody ; so that it probably causes the female more or less 

 pain to lay them. 



" When hatched the young are quite naked and very peculiar in appearance. I have been 

 astonished at the little love exhibited by the old birds for their offspring, as, more than once, on 

 coming near a mode of Pelicans (moste being the Russian for bridge, and the nest is called by 

 that name on account of its resemblance to a bridge) and firing a shot, the old birds have left 

 their young, frequently without returning, although, as a rule, they are not very wild, and can 

 be easily approached. On my first journey to the Calmuck steppes I found three of these nests 



