182 THE CONDOR Vol. XIX 



an inordinate appetite for pelican eggs. Young pelicans grow fast, and while 

 they cannot fly for two months, they can swim expertly at a much earlier pe- 

 riod. If it were not for the gulls, Molly Island would be a rather solemn and 

 quiet nesting ground, for the old pelicans never make a sound and even the 

 young have only a low grunt. 



The White Pelican gets his prey by scooping up fish as he swims along ; 

 often a school is driven before him into a sheltered cove where a sudden rush 

 and a violent plunge secures a pouch full. A White Pelican is said never to 

 dive, yet on at least one occasion while riding along the shore of the Yellow- 

 stone River I saw one do that very thing. He did not drop from the air with a 

 mighty splash as a Brown Pelican would have done, but plunged forward and 

 down from the river surface after the manner of a grebe. He went clear under 

 the surface, but I could not say whether or not he caught his fish. This bird 

 does not use his pouch to hold fish in, but gulps them down as fast as caught ; 

 still the pouch does serve to strain the fish from the water. Sometimes I have 

 seen a pelican rob a fish-duck when that bird incautiously fished too near. 



This Yellowstone colony bids fair, under government protection, to main- 

 tain its size indefinitely. While the mortality is high among the young birds, 

 enough reach maturity to a little better than maintain the number. Pelicans 

 are hardy birds, and their greatest danger is from the encroachments of civili- 

 zation. Here on Molly Island they seem to be secure, for they are too far from 

 the regular tourist route to be molested often. Almost all of the pelicans are 

 infested with a tapeworn (Dibothrhim cordiceps) in the intestinal tract. Here 

 the parasite lives and discharges its eggs out into the waters of the lake to be 

 eaten by the trout, who become the unwitting hosts of the worms in their lar- 

 val, or intermediate stage. And of course the consumption of the trout by the 

 pelicans completes the circle and permits the larvae to develop. However, 

 these parasites do not destroy the pelican nor even affect his health to an ap- 

 preciable extent. 



A third bird that I have noted on Molly Island is the Caspian Tern (Sterna 

 caspia). I have seen small flocks there twice, both times in late May, the birds 

 with the black cap and the coral-red bill of the breeding season. But, unfortu- 

 nately, I have never been able to determine positively that these terns nested 

 on the islets, although I believe they do. 



Summerville, South Carolina, March 31, 1917. 



A NEW SUBSPECIES OF GEOTHLYPIS BELDINGI 



By HARRY C. OBERHOLSER 



THE Belding Yellow-throat, Geathlypis oeldingi Uidgway, is a rather un- 

 common bird in collections. Occurring, as it does, only in the southern 

 portion of the peninsula of Lower California, its development into two 

 subspecies would seem hardly probable, but such is now seen evidently to be the 

 case. During the course of the identification of specimens of Geothlypis in the 

 Biological Survey collection, the writer's attention was called to the very con- 

 spicuous differences between individuals of this species from the Cape San Lu- 



