The California Brown Pelican 



Taken on Anacapa Island 



PERSIMMONS, PRUNES, AND PRISMS 



Photo by Dickey 



such eggs as we may require, and then prepare to rush the colony for mass 

 effects. Splendid! The whole earth seems to be in motion, and a thousand 

 aeroplanes launch into the air. There is no noise of propellers nor yet of 

 sputtering exhausts. Nature has perfected her models long since, and her 

 motors meet the test of absolute silence. Pelicano, Model A, is a weird- 

 looking craft, but a skyful of him is as efficient as so many swallows. 

 There is no crashing of fusilages, and never an aileron impinges upon the 

 rights of all that skyful. It is wonderful! awe-inspiring! It is only when 

 the excitement has died down a little and the birds decide to settle again, 

 that the show changes from grandeur to comedy. A pelican looking for a 

 place to land is grotesque beyond the power of exaggeration. With legs 

 spraddled out at divergent angles and heads drawn back, the birds are 

 preparing for the inevitable, and you rather expect a series of crashes. 

 The birds appear to also; but somehow no casualties result, and you come 

 to suspect that it is just a pose intended to enhance the effect of a sur- 

 prising deftness. 



Soon the ledges are lined with grave senators, and the birds gather in 

 open places to view with impeccable decorum the ravages of the ruthless 

 human bipeds. But, really, you know, it is not nearly so exciting to rob a 



1979 



