THE PELICAN 35 



As so often happens to travellers when they are after 

 wild creatures in their native haunts, "countless hosts of 

 mosquitoes and poisonous-looking horse-flies " awaited the 

 two Pelican-seekers, both on this occasion and another. 



These troubles are apt to beset the bird-hunter whether 

 successful or unsuccessful, and our two friends, on another 

 occasion, spent day after day roughing it by marsh and 

 lake-side, drifting down the river and ranging the coast- 

 line, without once being rewarded by finding the nesting- 

 place of the Pelicans. 



I have read that a Russian naturalist came upon one of 

 their nesting-places by a lake away on the dreary Kalmuck 

 Steppes, in south-east Russia. He found that there were 

 no fish in this lake, and that the Pelicans used to make 

 journeys to the River Volga (seventy miles away !) to obtain 

 food. Back they came, in due course, their great pouches 

 crammed with fish for themselves and their nestlings. 



The mother-bird is supposed to feed her young by 

 pressing the pouch against her breast and lifting the 

 " lid," while they take their pick of the captured fishes and 

 eels within. But Mr. Lodge declares that those of the 

 Dalmatian Pelicans which he has watched do not feed their 

 offspring from their pouches. He says, "the young bird 

 inserts its whole head down the parent's throat much lower 

 than the opening of the pouch. In fact, the point of the 

 young bird's beak could be distinctly seen pressing from 

 inside, at the base of the old bird's neck." A curious and 

 uncomfortable way of feeding, one would think, both for 

 parent and nestling. 



Baby Pelicans are the oddest little creatures in ap- 

 pearance. There is no grace or beauty about them. Their 

 snaky necks, large heads, stumpy wings, and general 

 awkwardness and helplessness are not disguised by any 



