PELICANS 
53 
just over the water, instead of which — after a somewhat splashy start 
that can he excused in such large, heavy birds — once they get in the air 
their rise is so easy and rapid that before one is aware they are circling 
up and up until, at times, they vanish in the blue sky. 
In feeding, pelicans paddle about the shallow water, head high, bill 
turned down against the breast, intently regarding the water below. When 
food is sighted, the bill is opened and plunged down and forward, the long 
slender sides of the lower mandible bow out, and the luckless victim is 
fairly scooped up. At the end of the scoop when the pressure of water in 
the pouch is relieved the sides spring together, the upper mandible closes 
down to a narrow opening, and, as the water is strained out, the contents 
are retained either to be swallowed immediately or to be carried safely in 
the capacious pouch to the gangling fledglings at home. Pelicans often 
fish far from their nests and they may be seen for many miles about a 
colony passing back and forth engaged in the toil of keeping themselves 
and their families supplied with food. 
Pelicans are one of the spectacular features of prairie wild life and are 
a great aesthetic asset where objects of striking interest are particularly 
desirable. They are well worth the small price of such coarse fish as they 
feed upon. All large birds suffer from thoughtless persecution by careless 
men. It would seem as though size alone were regarded as crime sufficient 
to turn every gun against its unhappy possessor. This has been true of 
the pelican, as it has been of other large birds of greater sporting or food 
value. Pelicans are never eaten and their carcasses serve no other purpose 
than to befoul the air, yet gunners are all too few who can withhold their 
shot when such striking targets come within range. The fact that they 
eat a few fish is the expressed excuse, but if this class of fish protectionists 
were as concerned about the acts of poaching humans as they are about 
those of birds there would probably be more fish, and those taken by the 
pelicans would not lie missed. 
Pelicans generally nest in large communities on islands or other 
isolated spofs in the larger lakes, where they are fairly secure from their 
natural enemies. They are in many cases associated with cormorants, 
herons, and gulls. Although such a community is by its insularity 
normally secure from foxes, coyotes, and other vermin, it is not safe from 
man. Cases have been known where adjoining residents have placed 
pigs on such islands to fatten on the eggs and young. It is to be hoped 
that such things arc of the past. With the settling of the country, the 
draining of the lakes, reclamation and other improvement schemes, inac- 
cessible and retired spots where these and similar birds can nest undis- 
turbed are constantly growing scarcer. These almost unavoidable changes, 
added to promiscuous shooting, are constantly reducing the numbers of 
these birds, and if nothing were done to check the destruction, they, 
together with the Trumpeter Swan and the Whooping Crane — which re- 
semble them in size and nesting range — would shortly be extinct. Fortun- 
ately, a number of bird reserves have been established about many of 
the prairie lakes by Provincial and Federal legislation. It is hoped and 
expected that some or all of these species may survive indefinitely, and 
continue to add their attractions to the prairie landscape. 
Economic Status. Probably almost entirely fish-eaters. All stomachs 
examined by the writer have contained the coarser and more sluggish, 
easily caught fish of the weedy shallows, usually those of smaller size. 
