Show how the pelican feeds charles F holder the naturalist do bribing scribing cri bing a pet pelican which he formerly ownus in florida says 1 I cannot recall that tho the pelican ever refused reused food after the ther most impossible feeding fe edICe it ha ba the samo dejected hafk starved attitude and the same asthmatic cry for more it was only after many months that I 1 discovered that mat the pelican can never be satis fled he ile thus describes the fishing exploits of these bird birds in feeding they generally flew twenty to thirty feet above the water with rapid motion of at the powerful wines wings holding the bead head slightly upon one aide that they might observe the schools of sardines when tho the latter were lighted they would plunge blindly downward opening the mouth widely just before they reach the water endeavoring in this clumsy manner to catch the fish flab which cot not being able to see upward were entirely ignorant of the nearness me amess of danger after the plunge the pelican invariably wags his diminutive tail tall a congratulatory self act which the birda birds stupidity for tho the chances are one to five that it baa has caught nothing the bills are held upward the water allowed to run out at f the enormous pow boum poum lo and then if any game hag has been caught the pelican tosses its beak upward which throws the fish forward or toward the point of the beak whore where 1 Is often held a few seconds from here being dropped as it were into the throat which Is a vo very small orifice in a veritable waste of pouch at this moment perhaps a laughing gull robs aha pelican some times it alights on an its back again on its bead head and the stupid bird makes no resistance roal stance the eull gull often uttering its victorious ha hat hal in advance juet just a the fish Is thrown to tho the tip of the beak and protrudes from the side the laughing gull leans forward orward snatches it and rises aloft to in turn be followed by tha the swift manof man odwar of war bird in this simple way a pelican will b be robbed by successive birds and will swallow but a small percentage of what it catches which possibly ex plains why it la Is always hungry |