252 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
Perrcans. — In the February number of the AMERICAN NATURAL- 
ist (1871) is a communication from Detroit, describing a remark- 
able specimen of the White or Rough-billed Pelican, which was shot 
on Lake Huron, and the writer appears to think that the occur- 
rence of this bird on the great lakes is a very rare thing. The 
size of the specimen described by Mr. Gilman was certainly re- 
markable, far exceeding anything in my experience. The largest 
specimen that I ever measured was ninety inches in alar extent, 
less by eighteen inches, than Mr. Gilman’s specimen. This was 
killed during the present winter in East Florida, and was consid- 
ered by hunters who saw it, as very large. It was a male in full 
nuptial plumage and was a magnificent bird. 
The White Pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchus, was formerly not 
uncommon at the South end of Lake Michigan. I myself pos- 
sessed a fine male which was killed within the present limits of the 
city of Chicago in 1840, by Dr. John T. Temple, then of that city, 
when we were shooting ducks together on the river. I stuffed and 
mounted the bird and had it for several years in my collection. At 
that time the white pelican was frequently seen on those waters, 
though like the swan, it has now disappeared before the march of 
settlements. 
In East Florida, the Brown Pelican, P. fuscus, a smaller bird, 
is most numerous ; you will see twenty of these to one of the white 
species. They both breed in that region, and lay their eggs on 
the sand bars and lonely islands. At the Inlets of the Hillsboro 
and the Indian rivers, I have seen flocks of the brown pelican 
which must have contained several hundreds. They roost on the 
mangrove trees in the creeks, almost breaking down the branches 
with their weight, and covering the ground with their droppings. 
Regularly at young flood they wing their way to the Inlet to fish. 
This the brown pelican does by diving from a great height, while 
the white species swims with open bill upon the Sairi of fish, 
which it scoops up as with a net into its capacious pou 
In the Indian river is an island upon which the spe breed 
in vast numbers. A party of hunters visited it this year in March, 
and found it covered with eggs and young birds, which were being 
fed by the old ones with fish. Some of these were shot, and most 
of the others driven away, when suddenly the island was invaded 
by multitudes of the Fish Crow, Corvus ossifragus, which began to 
devour both the eggs and the callow young, deprived of their nat- ; 
