128 
THE CONDOR 
You VI 
We found the young birds in two groups, about ten yards apart, near the 
western end of the island. There were two hundred or more, as nearly as I could 
count and estimate, and they ranged in size from a half grown gosling, to that of a 
large fowl, and larger. They were crowded together at the edge of the water in a 
solid mass — but, try as we would, we could not drive them into the water, those 
in the center, in many instances standing on the bodies of their younger and less 
fortunate relatives. 
Young pelicans must certainly be given a prominent place in the front rank of 
the ridiculous and grotesfjue in bird life. Their excessively fat, squabby bodies, 
the under parts of w'hich are bare, while the upper parts are covered with a w^ool- 
like coating, hardly distinguishable from that on the back of a four weeks-old lamb; 
the.se bodies set on a pair of legs, of the use of which the youngsters seem to have 
no very clear notion, so that when they undertake to move about they wobble and 
teeter and balance themselves with their short, unfledged wings, often tumbling 
over; many of them (on this occasion) with their mandibles parted, and panting 
like a dog after a long run on a hot day, the pouch hanging limp and flabby, like 
an empty sack, shaken by every breath — form, appearance, movement, all com- 
bine to make these birds absurdly ridiculous. 
When we approached these birds, those nearest the water would not move an 
inch, while those nearest us in their frantic endeavors to get away would try to climb 
up and over the struggling, squirming mass in front of them, sometimes succeed- 
ing, but oftener rolling back to the ground where, not infrequently they alighted 
upon their backs, and lay helplessly beating their wings and kicking their feet in 
the air — after the fashion of some huge beetle — till they were helped to right 
themselves. When left to themselves, not a few of these birds w’ould “sit down,” 
just as a dog sits on his haunches, the wings sometimes hanging limp at the sides, 
at others folded back. The larger part of them, however, simply squatted in the 
usual manner. They made no .sound, save when we attempted to drive them, when 
an occasional puppydike grunt would be heard, as if some hapless youngster had 
fallen, or been trodden upon. 
We were not fortunate enough to see these young birds feed themselves, but 
one who visited the island a few days before we did, said that a bird would take a 
fish, hold up its head — as a hen does when she drinks — shake it from side to side 
till the fish slid down. Their fat bodies certainly showed that they were all well fed. 
We were too late to find many nests — only five in all — and these yielded 
seven eggs, one of which was fresh, the others only slightly incubated. These 
nests, with a single exception, consisted simply of heaps of gravel in the center of 
which was a slight depression where the eggs were laid. The exception was 
built of coarse sticks and pelican’s feathers, and contained tw’o eggs. All the 
eggs secured were noticeably blood stained, owing, I suppose, to their size and the 
roughness of the shell. 
Evidently the pelicans believe in keeping “open house,” and certainly they 
are generous entertainers for, as already noted, there were immense quantities of 
fish on the island — heaps of them everywhere. And though these birds are lim- 
ited in the matter of variety of food, they make up for this by the impartiality with 
which they take the different species of fish which this particular lake affords 
them. Upon examination I found chub, carp, cattish, suckers, an occasional bass. 
More than one-half the fish seen were chub, and in connection with these fish an 
interesting coincidence appeared. Of twenty-three piles examined, all of them 
but three contained either five or six of these small fish — the three exceptions con- 
