30 Birds of Colorado 
long line, driving the fishes before them into the shallow 
water and catching them when floundering. They 
fill the elastic pouches beneath their long bills with 
great quantities of fishes, which they devour at leisure 
or carry off and disgorge to feed their young. 
They breed in great communities, generally on islands 
in lakes. The nest is on the ground, sometimes a simple 
depression in the sand, sometimes put together with 
a few sticks and weeds. The eggs, usually two, are oval, 
white and chalky, and measure 3°50 x 2°30. 
Brown Pelican. Pelecanus occidentalis. 
A.O.U. Checklist no 126—Colorado Record—Smith 10, p. 133. 
Description.—Adult—Top of the head and a spot on the upper-breast 
straw-yellow, « white line on eitner side of the breast; hind-head 
and neck brown, rest of the body silvery grey except the primaries, 
which are black; under-parts brown streaked with white. Length 
50°0; wing 19°5; tarsus 2°65; bill 11°0. After the breeding season 
the bird’s head and neck are white tinged with straw-yellow; young 
birds are similar but duller. 
Distribution.—The Atlantic coasts of tropical and subtropical America 
breeding north to South Carolina; accidental in other parts of the 
United States. : 
According to H. G. Smith a single example of this species, now 
preserved in the State Museum at Denver, was killed on Wood’s Lake, 
Thomasville, Colorado, by Mr. P. J. Engelbrecht in June, 1908. This 
is the only record for the State. 
ORDER ANSERES. 
This order includes the Ducks, Geese and Swans, 
and forms a well-marked and clearly circumscribed 
group of birds. Externally they can be distinguished 
by their characteristically shaped bill, which is generally 
broad, flattened and depressed, and is covered by a 
soft membrane except at the tip of the upper mandible, 
where there is a hard nail; furthermore both mandibles 
have, just inside their cutting-edges, a series of horny 
