Page:Bird-lore Vol 03.djvu/18



Pelican Island Revisited BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN With photographs from nature by the author HE results of observations on the inhabitants of Pehcan Island, in the Indian River, Florida, made during four days in March, 1898, have already been recorded ^"^ in some detail, and it is proposed to add here only certain supplementary notes, secured April 24, 1900. Being armed w^ith a far more effective battery of cameras, I obtained, on this second visit, photographs of several phases of Pelican life, notably views of the birds on the wing, which it had proved impossible to make on my pre- vious trip to the island. These pictures, it ma' be of interest to explain, were taken with a reflecting camera, fitted with a focal-plane shutter, similar to the camera described in Hird-Lore for April, 1899. While the wing-beats of the Brown Pelican are comparatively slow, former experience showed that a lens shutter was by no means rapid enough to take satisfactory pictures of the birds in flight. With the focal -plane shutter, however, suffi- ciently fast exposures were made to show the wing at every stage of the stroke and with enough definition to enable one to see clearly the sepa- ration of the outer primaries. Returning to Pelican Island one month later in the year than the date of my 1898 visit, I had expected to find few or no eggs and most of the oung of the year with flight feathers appearing or fully devel- oped. There was, however, no apparent difference in the proportionate number of eggs or age of the young birils, and it reijuired a careful census, and an analysis of it, to bring out the fact that the breeding season was somewhat mori- advanced in 1900, anil, I regret to say. that the population of the island had decreased.
 * ' Bird Stuiiirs with a Cainer:!,' .il II "n i<i ;ri