Page:The birds of America, volume 7.djvu/34

22 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. Andrt, 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, Geese, and other kinds, which leave our Southern Districts every spring for higher latitudes, were formerly in the habit of remaining and breeding in every section of the country that was found to be favourable for that purpose. It seems to me that it is now on account of the difficulties they meet with, from the constantly increasing numbers of our