The California Brown Pelican 



wings and tail; underparts white, washed with brownish gray on sides; an occipital 

 crest as in adult, but brownish. Length of adult 1371.6 (4^ feet) or more; average 

 of 7 Monterey specimens; wing 565 (22.25); bill 346 (13.60); tarsus 83.4 (3.28). 



Recognition Marks. — Giant size; silvery gray and brown coloration, with im- 

 mense bill, distinctive. 



Nesting. — In colonies. Nest: A shallow platform of sticks and trash on the 

 ground, usually a sea-girt islet. Eggs: 3 or 4; elliptical ovate; white with roughened 

 chalky surface due to irregular overlays of calcareous material, often smeared with 

 bright olive (olive lake) and early nest-stained. Av. size 76.2 x 48.3 (3.00 x 1.90). 

 Season: Feb. 15-May. 



Range of Pelecanus occidentalis. — Coasts of temperate and tropical America 

 from the Gulf States and California south to Brazil and Ecuador. 



Range of P. 0. californicus. — Pacific Coast of America from California to the 

 Galapagos and Ecuador; breeds north to about Latitude 34°, and wanders up the 

 Pacific Coast, chiefly at the close of the breeding season, to Oregon or Washington, 

 and rarely to the mouth of the Fraser River and Alert Bay, Vancouver Island (Mrs. 

 Bicknell). Also casual in the interior east to Nevada (A. O. U.). 



Distribution in California. — Breeds north on the Santa Barbara Islands to 

 Anacapa Island and Prince Islet (off San Miguel). Found at all seasons irregularly 

 and in varying numbers along the entire coast line and in bays and harbors, least 

 commonly during spring. Accidental in the interior. Three birds seen in Stanislaus 

 County, Sept. 19, 1913, by J. Mailliard. 



Authorities. — Gambel (Pelecanus fuscus), Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 2, 

 i., 1849, 227 (Calif.); Willett, Condor, vol. xii., 1910, pp. 171, 173 (breeding colonies on 

 Anacapa and San Miguel ids.); Howell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 12, 1917, p. 40 

 (s. Calif, ids.; habits, etc.); Oberholser, Auk, vol. xxxv., 1918, p. 62 (syst. ; nomencl.). 



SYMBOL alike of the sea's strangeness and of her prodigality, there 

 is perhaps no other bird whose appearance would so perfectly assure 

 the landsman that he had arrived as this uncouth Adonis of the ocean- 

 front, the California Brown Pelican. We will concede, without argument, 

 that the bird is impossible. It is an incarnate jest, if you will, a piece of 

 apprentice work perpetrated by one of the lesser divinities of Nature's 

 workshop. An adobe artist with an imagination like Dore has taken a 

 perfectly good goose and tricked it out with a huge fish-net which it is 

 pledged forever to wear, and the public is expected to laugh at the poor 

 bird's plight. But somehow we do not laugh. The bird has accepted 

 its lot with such becoming meekness; it is able to view life with such 

 imperturbable gravity; above all, it has met its situation with such tran- 

 scendent skill, that we can only wonder and applaud. 



For what, after all, is more adroit than the flight of a Pelican? With 

 three or four leisurely strokes the bird acquires a momentum with which 

 he can glide with incredible accuracy just above the surface of the water. 

 Or if he is hunting at a higher level, the bird is able to check his momentum, 

 to put on brakes midair, in less than the distance of his own length, and 

 to plunge with the speed of thought upon his finny prey. If the run of 



1971 



