The California Brown Pelican 



ing like a lot of dogs after the chase on a hot day, their pouches shaken 

 at every breath. When we went near one of the colonies, the youngsters 

 went tottering off on their big webbed feet with wings dragging on this 

 side and that as if they were poorly handled crutches. The first thing 

 they did when we approached was to vomit up fish and then stagger on 

 with the crowd. Following along after a band of young pelicans was as 

 bad as crossing a battlefield where the victims were fish, for the carcasses 

 were strewn all along in the wake of the procession. Those on the out- 

 side pushed and climbed to get nearer the center, till it looked worse than 

 any football scrimmage I ever saw. I watched one large bird rush for the 

 center, bucking over three or four others and finally landing astraddle the 

 neck of another. When we went nearer, those on the outside began to 

 circle the ends, and around and around the whole mass revolved as it 

 moved off. Soon after, the little gluttons retraced their steps to pick 

 up the fish dinners that had been left behind." 



Taken in Merced Countv Photo bv the Author 



FOUR PATRIARCHS 



No. 399 



California Brown Pelican 



A. O. U. No. 127. Pelecanus occidentalis californicus Ridgway. 



Description. — Adult in breeding plumage: Bill mottled light and dark with 

 various tinting of carmine; bare space about eye brownish; eyelids red; irides white; 

 pouch red; a short narrow occipital crest of loose feathers; feathers of head and borders 

 of pouch white; the rest of neck dark chestnut to blackish; upperparts silvery gray, 

 the feathers of back, rump, lesser wing-coverts, etc., edged with dusky; underparts 

 dusky, the shafts of feathers white, striped with silvery white on sides, etc.; feet black. 

 Adult in winter: Similar but without chestnut on neck, white instead; top and sides 

 of head and the lower jugulum tinged with straw-yellow. Immature: Head and neck 

 all around, chest, and upperparts brownish gray, varied somewhat by paler edgings of 

 feathers, especially on lesser wing-coverts, and by dull silvery plating of major feathers of 



I970 



