PELICAN ISLAND 197 
from fishing expeditions, platoons were resting on 
the sandy points, some were bathing, others sailing 
in broad circles high overhead. Soon we could hear 
the sound of many voices—a medley of strange cries 
101. Pelicans on ground nests. 
in an unknown tongue. Arriving and departing on 
wings, the inhabitants of Pelican Island have little 
need of deep water harbors, and we were obliged to 
anchor our sloop about a hundred yards from the 
island and go ashore in a small boat. 
No traveler ever entered the gates of a foreign 
city with greater expectancy than I felt as I stepped 
from my boat on the muddy edge of this City of 
the Pelicans. The old birds, without a word of pro- 
test, deserted their homes, leaving their eggs and 
young at my mercy. But the young were as abu- 
sive and threatening as their parents were silent and 
