The California Brown Pelican 



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Taken on Anacapa Island 



CONGRATULATIONS! MRS. O'FLAHERTY. 



Photo by Donald R. Dickey 

 SHURE, OI JIST HEARD ABOUT THE TWINS 



The author pleads no more serious a purpose than an oological quest, 

 and the securing of some of these pictures, to justify a brief exploitation of 

 a province of this elder Eden; and (with consummate hypocrisy, if you 

 will) he urges that such visits be not repeated. For the truth is, Pelicans 

 pay a fearful price — to the gulls — for any invasion — however intended- 

 peaceful — of their colonies. A man is at best a potential marauder, and 

 so long as his intentions are under suspicion, nests are uncovered and eggs 

 grow cold or are snapped up by the predatory gulls. Indeed, your gull is 

 the arch-hypocrite, and if his dupes, the brooding pelicans, make as though 

 to return to their charges before the Larine devastation is complete, fresh 

 alarms are raised. The wily gulls profess a mortal terror of man's pres- 

 ence, whereas their true aim is always to "beat him to it," once a nest is 

 uncovered. It is for this reason, and for this reason only, that I solemnly 

 urge either a substantial reduction of the gull population of our coasts, or 

 else a practically absolute protection of all the major colonies of nesting 

 sea-birds. 



ig~7 



