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AMERICAN- WHITE PELICAN. 
hostile species, that these creatures are urged to proceed towards wild and 
uninhabited parts of the world, where they find that security from molesta- 
tion necessary to enable them to rear their innocent progeny, but which is 
now denied them in countries once their own. 
The White American Pelican never descends from on wing upon its prey, 
as is the habit of the Brown Pelican ; and, although on many occasions it 
fishes in the manner above described, it varies its mode according to circum- 
stances, such as a feeling of security, or the accidental meeting with shoals 
of fishes in such shallows as the birds can well coinpass. They never dive 
for their food, but only thrust their head into the waters as far as their neck 
can reach, and withdraw it as soon as they have caught something, or have 
missed it, for their head is seldom out of sight more than half a minute at a 
time. When they are upon rivers, they usually feed along the margin of 
the water, though, I believe, mostly in swimming depth, when they proceed 
with greater celerity than when on the sand. While thus swimming, you 
see their necks extended, with their upper mandible only above the water, 
the lower being laterally extended, and ready to receive whatever fish or 
other food may chance to come into the net-like apparatus attached to it. 
As this species is often seen along the seashores searching for food, as 
well as on fresh water, I will give you a description of its manners there. 
While on the Island of Barataria in April, 1837, I one afternoon observed 
a number of White Pelicans swimming against the wind and current, with 
their wings partially extended, and the neck stretched out, the upper man- 
dible alone appearing above the surface, while the lower must have been 
used as a scoop-net, as I saw it raised from time to time, and brought to meet 
the upper, when the whole bill immediately fell to a perpendicular position, 
the water was allowed to run out, and the bill being again raised upwards, 
the fish was swallowed. After thus swimming for about a hundred yards in 
an extended line, and parallel to each other, they would rise on wing, wheel 
about, and re-alight at the place where their fishing had commenced, when 
they would repeat the same actions. I continued watching them more than 
an hour, concealed among a large quantity of drifted logs, until their fishing 
was finished, when they all flew off to the lee of another island, no doubt to 
spend the night there, for these birds are altogether diurnal. When gorged, 
they retire to the shores, to small islands in bays or rivers, or sit on logs 
floating in shallow water, at a good distance from the beach ; in all which 
situations they are prone to lie down, or stand closely together. 
Being anxious, when on my last expedition, to procure several specimens 
of these birds for the purpose of presenting you with an account of their 
anatomical structure, I requested all on board our vessel to shoot them on all 
occasions ; but no birds having been procured, I was obliged to set out with 
