THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Many other notes are on record, but apparently none detailing the 
habits of the bird, but merely notices that the bird is common or rare, and 
consequently httle is known of its hfe-history. As this is a bird which will 
certainly suffer rapidly from the advance of civilisation, it is obvious that 
action should be taken at once, and its habits fully recorded before it is 
too late. 
The bird figured and described is a male collected on the Fish River, New 
South Wales, on the 6th of January, 1910. 
The following notes refer to the Western bird : 
The first note regarding this form seems to be that by Elsey, who in a 
letter from the Victoria River Depot, North Western Australia [Northern 
Territory] published by Gould in the Proc. Zool Soc. (Lond.) 1857, p. 28, 
observed : “ The pelican is white, with black wings, and a very fine blue- 
and-purple margin round the pouch. It is, I presume, Pelecanus conspicillatus. 
Its breeding-season is March and April.” 
Mr. Tom Carter has written me : “ The Pefican occurs commonly 
throughout Western Austraha, wherever the food supply and surroundings 
are suitable. In the centre of the Princess Royal Harbour at Albany a 
flock could almost always be seen^ in the vicinity of, or resting upon a sand 
bank that afforded a clear view all round. On the sandbanks about the 
estuary of the great Gascoyne River at Carnarvon, as many as two hundred 
can frequently be seen in a flock, and I often watched them last year (1913). 
They used to breed regularly at Pefican Island some distance further south 
in Shark’s Bay. They were common in the mangrove creeks in the vicinity 
of the North-west Cape and my natives informed me that they used to breed 
on a small island in the Exmouth Gulf. Some of these birds go a long way 
inland in order to fish in some of the permanent pools of such large rivers as 
the Gascoyne and Lyons.” 
Mr. J. P. Rogers’ notes read : “A small flock was seen on the water one 
mile east of my camp at Marngle Creek. Several were seen on swamps near 
the Fitzroy when returning to Derby from Jegurrack, and one pair flew over 
Derby the day I left for Port Darwin. These birds are said to breed on the 
West Island of the Lacepede Group, North of Broome. I saw young birds 
at Broome in 1902 said to have been procured on this island in October. Are 
not numerous in West Kimberley. 
“ September 6, 1908. About twenty pelicans have arrived and taken up 
their quarters on Parry’s Creek : these are the first I have seen. They are 
very quiet. 
“ September 7, 1908. Ten more arrived to-day. 
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