?28 THE CONDOR Voi,. 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 prominet?t place in the front rank of the ridiculous and grotesque in bird life. Their excessively fat, squabby bodies, the under parts of which are bare, while the upper parts are covered with a wool- like coating, hardly distinguish?ble from that on the back of a four weeks-old lamb; these 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 iu 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 oftcrier 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 would "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 puppy-like 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 two 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, catfish, snckers, 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-
