56 WATER BIRDS 



flying along the coast over the water in pelican fashion, 

 one behind another. Their flight is characteristic, being 

 five or six wing-strokes taken by all simultaneously, 

 followed by a soaring, which lasts until the leader gives 

 the signal for more wing-strokes. Back and forth up 

 and down the coast, always in pelican single file, the 

 line broken only when one dives to the water for an 

 especially tempting fish. At the inlet on the west side 

 of the isthmus of Santa Catalina, the early morning 

 hours are vocal with the noise of their fishing. Plunk ! 

 plunk ! — they dive one by one from various heights, 

 striking the water with a heavy splash that can be 

 heard several hundred feet. Mr. Gosse says that these 

 Pelicans invariably turn a somersault under the surface 

 of the water ; for they descend diagonally, and the head 

 emerges in the opposite direction. 



Although shown a young Brown Pelican which the 

 owner said he had taken from the nest on Santa Cata- 

 lina Islands, I found that tiie fishermen there agreed 

 with Mr. Grinnell that no pelicans nested nearer than 

 Los Coronados Islands. As they return to the same 

 breeding ground year after year, the rookery would cer- 

 tainly have been discovered, no matter how inaccessible. 



180. WHISTLING S^NKi^. — Olorcolumbianus. 

 Family : The Ducks, Geese, and Swans. 



Length : About 4J feet. 



Adults: Uniform white; basal portion of bill white, with lores black, 



the latter usually with a small yellow spot. 

 Voung : Light grayish ; bill pinkish ; feet light. 



