580 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
by water, and it was a difficult matter to work the boat through 
the tangle and get at the nests. In some places, three or four 
nests were situated within a yard or so of each other but, as a 
rule, they were more scattered. The nests, were made princi¬ 
pally of sticks and twigs measuring from eight inches to a foot 
and a half in length. The materials used to line the depression 
were grass and weeds. A nest which may be taken as one of 
average size, measured twenty-four inches, outside diameter; 
eleven inches inside diameter; ten inches outside depth; and four 
inches inside depth. Most of the nests contained four eggs, only 
one containing as many as live. In sets containing this num¬ 
ber, four, incubation had commenced, while eggs from nests con¬ 
taining a smaller number than four proved to be fresh. In color 
they are light, blue. There is deposited on the surface, a layer 
of whitish chalky substance which can easily be chipped off> 
They are elongated in shape and slightly larger at one end. 
After becoming nest-stained they resemble eggs of HolboelTs 
Grebe. The average size of fifteen specimens measured is: 
2.41 xl.49. They vary from 2.28 to 2.01 in length, and from 
1.39 to 1.58 in width. 
The Cormorants kept up a continual squawking or chattering 
noise which could be heard at some distance from the rookery. 
When the observer approached to within a couple of rods of the 
rookery, the birds flopped off the nests into the water, and, with 
a great noise, scrambled to the open and took wing. They 
continued to fly about over the place while their domain was 
being disturbed. 
125. American White Pelican. 
Pelecanus erythrorhynchos (Gmel.). 
A few of these birds were seen on some of the larger lakes, but 
the only place where they were found in any number was Lake 
Lenore. Here a flock of one hundred or more was seen. They 
were swimming about at the inlet, of a creek emptying into the 
lake, apparently searching for fish. On being approached, they 
took to wing, breaking up into several smaller flocks, part of 
them settling on the lake a short distance away and others flying 
to a considerable distance. They were seen continually coming 
to and leaving the lake, in flocks of eight or ten, or by twos and 
threes or, occasionally, one alone. Their manner of flying is 
