Audubon's Birds/BIRDSVER1_3.BIN/dp/0070/00703.txt

Text File | 1992-08-27 | 34KB | 483 lines

$Unique_ID{BRD00703}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{American White Pelican}
$Subject{Pelecaninae; Pelecanus; Americanus; erythrorhynchos; American White
Pelican}
$Journal{Birds of America:  Volume VII}
$Volume{Vol. 7:20-32}
$Family{Pelecaninae}
$Genus{Pelecanus}
$Species{Americanus; erythrorhynchos}
$Common_Name{American White Pelican}
$Log{
Plate CCCCXXII*00703P1.scf
Family*00682.txt
Genus*00702.txt
Figure 1*0070301.scf
Figure 2*0070302.scf}

       Portions copyright (c) Creative Multimedia Corp., 1990-91, 1992

                       B I R D S   O F   A M E R I C A .

                    By John James Audubon, F. R. SS. L. & E.

                   ------------------------------------------
                                   VOL.  VII.
                        --------------------------------


                            AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN.
                           [American White Pelican.]


                           PELECANUS AMERICANUS, Aud.
                          [Pelecanus erythrorhynchos.]


                          PLATE CCCCXXII.--ADULT MALE.


     I feel great pleasure, good reader, in assuring you, that our White
Pelican, which has hitherto been considered the same as that found in Europe, is
quite different.  In consequence of this discovery, I have honoured it with the
name of my beloved country, over the mighty streams of which, may this splendid
bird wander free and unmolested to the most distant times, as it has already
done from the misty ages of unknown antiquity.
     In Dr. RICHARDSON's Introduction to the second volume of the Fauna
Boreali-Americana, we are informed, that the Pelecanus Onocrotalus (which is the
bird now named P. Americanus) flies in dense flocks all the summer in the Fur
Countries.  At page 472, the same intrepid traveller says, that "Pelicans are
numerous in the interior of the Fur Countries up to the sixty-first parallel;
but they seldom come within two hundred miles of Hudson's Bay.  They deposit
their eggs usually on rocky islands, on the brink of cascades, where they can
scarcely be approached; but they are otherwise by no means shy birds."  My
learned friend also speaks of the "long thin bony process seen on the upper
mandible of the bill of this species;" and although neither he nor Mr. SWAINSON
pointed out the actual differences otherwise existing between this and the
European species, he states that no such appearance has been described as
occurring on the bills of the White Pelicans of the old Continent.
     When, somewhat more than thirty years ago, I first removed to Kentucky,
Pelicans of this species were frequently seen by me on the sand-bars of the
Ohio, and on the rock-bound waters of the rapids of that majestic river,
situated, as you well know, between Louisville and Shippingport.  Nay when, a
few years afterwards, I established myself at Henderson, the White Pelicans were
so abundant that I often killed several at a shot, on a well known sand-bar,
which protects Canoe Creek Island.  During those delightful days of my early
manhood, how often have I watched them with delight!  Methinks indeed, reader,
those days have returned to me, as if to enable me the better once more to read
the scattered notes contained in my often-searched journals.
     Ranged along the margins of the sand-bar, in broken array, stand a hundred
heavy-bodied Pelicans.  Gorgeous tints, all autumnal, enrich the foliage of
every tree around, the reflection of which, like fragments of the rainbow, seems
to fill the very depths of the placid and almost sleeping waters of the Ohio.
The subdued and ruddy beams of the orb of day assure me that the Indian summer
has commenced, that happy season of unrivalled loveliness and serenity, symbolic
of autumnal life, which to every enthusiastic lover of nature must be the purest
and calmest period of his career.  Pluming themselves, the gorged Pelicans
patiently wait the return of hunger.  Should one chance to gape, all, as if by
sympathy, in succession open their long and broad mandibles, yawning lazily and
ludicrously.  Now, the whole length of their largest quills is passed through
the bill, until at length their apparel is as beautifully trimmed as if the
party were to figure at a route.  But mark, the red beams of the setting sun
tinge the tall tops of the forest trees; the birds experience the cravings of
hunger, and to satisfy them they must now labour.  Clumsily do they rise on
their columnar legs, and heavily waddle to the water.  But now, how changed do
they seem!  Lightly do they float, as they marshal themselves, and extend their
line, and now their broad paddle-like feet propel them onwards.  In yonder nook,
the small fry are dancing in the quiet water, perhaps in their own manner
bidding farewell to the orb of day, perhaps seeking something for their supper.
Thousands there are, all gay, and the very manner of their mirth, causing the
waters to sparkle, invites their foes to advance toward the shoal.  And now the
Pelicans, aware of the faculties of their scaly prey, at once spread out their
broad wings, press closely forward with powerful strokes of their feet, drive
the little fishes toward the shallow shore, and then, with their enormous
pouches spread like so many bag-nets, scoop them out and devour them in
thousands.
     How strange it is, reader, that birds of this species should be found
breeding in the Fur Countries, at about the same period when they are to be
found on the waters of the inland bays of the Mexican Gulf!  On the 2nd of
April, 1837, I met with these birds in abundance at the south-west entrance or
mouth of the Mississippi, and afterwards saw them in the course of the same
season, in almost every inlet, bay, or river, as I advanced toward Texas, where
I found some of them in the Bay of Galveston, on the 1st of May.  Nay, while on
the Island of Grande Terre, I was assured by Mr. ANDRY, a sugar-planter, who has
resided there for some years, that he had observed White Pelicans along the
shores every month of the year.  Can it be, that in this species of bird, as in
many others, barren individuals should remain in sections of countries
altogether forsaken by those which are reproductive?  The latter, we know,
travel to the Rocky Mountains and the Fur Countries of the north, and there
breed.  Or do some of these birds, as well as of certain species of our Ducks,
remain and reproduce in those southern localities, induced to do so by some
organic or instinctive peculiarity?  Ah, reader, how little do we yet know of
the wonderful combinations of Nature's arrangements, to render every individual
of her creation comfortable and happy under all the circumstances in which they
may be placed!
     My friend JOHN BACHMAN, in a note to me, says that "this bird is now more
rare on our coast than it was thirty years ago; for I have heard it stated that
it formerly bred on the sand banks of our Bird Islands.  I saw a flock on the
Bird Banks off Bull's Island, on the 1st day of July, 1814, when I procured two
full-plumaged old birds, and was under the impression that they had laid eggs on
one of those banks, but the latter had the day previous to my visit been
overflowed by a spring tide, accompanied with heavy wind."
     A single pair of our White Pelicans were procured not far from
Philadelphia, on the Delaware or Schuylkill, ten or twelve years ago, and one or
two have been shot on the upper waters of the Hudson.  These were the only birds
of this kind that, I believe, were ever observed in our Middle Districts, where
even the Brown Pelican, Pelecanus fuscus, is never seen.  From these facts, it
may be concluded that the White Pelicans reach the Fur Countries of Hudson's Bay
by inland journeys, and mostly by passing along our great western rivers in the
spring months, as they are also wont to do, though with less rapid movements, in
autumn.
     Reader, I have thought a thousand times perhaps that the present state of
migration of many of our birds, is in a manner artificial, and that a portion of
the myriads of Ducks, Ge