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Show 580 MR. D. G. ELLIOT ON THE GENUS PELECANUS. [Nov. 25, This is the common species of the Old World, and was known to the earliest writers on ornithology. It goes at times in great flocks, as witnessed by W . H. Simpson, who states, in the ' Ibis,' vol. iii. p. 366, that he once saw a flock of these birds, numbering several thousand individuals, flying northward in the Dobrudscha. The female constructs her nest upon the ground, formed of reeds and lined with soft grass, and lays usually two white eggs. The present bird does not confine itself to the shores of the sea, but frequents inland lakes and rivers; feeds principally upon fish, and at the approach of winter migrates in immense flocks. Very great confusion exists in the synonymy of this species, the difficulty in the majority of instances arising from the uncertainty as to whether there are two species-one with a lengthened occipital pendent crest, which would appear to be a smaller bird, and the other without any crest properly so-called, the feathers of the occiput merely curling slightly upward. During the breeding-season, however, the present bird, the true P. onocrotalus of Linn., has a somewhat lengthened occipital crest, and at such times, in this respect, it does not differ materially from its smaller ally, this crest at other periods of the year being inconspicuous. But there is a slight difference in the width and extent of the line made by the feathers which come down upon the forehead. In the present species it ends abruptly with little lessening of the width, while in the smaller bird it is long and narrow, ending in almost a sharp point. I have placed Mr. Gould's P. onocrotalus, in 'Birds of Europe,' with a ?, as, giving no dimensions in his text, and his figure not being life-size and showing the crest somewhat lengthened, it is rather difficult to say to which bird it should be referred. Dr. Jerdon thinks that Bree has figured the P. mitratus for the present species in his ' Birds of Europe ;' but as Dr. Bree states that an example in the Zoological Society's Gardens in London was the original of his plate, it is probably the present species, as the P. mitratus was not in the Society's possession at that time. The P. javanicus of Blyth's ' Catalogue' of the Asiatic Society may perhaps be assigned to this species, as he refers it to Stephens's plate in Shaw's * General Zoology,' which does not give any of the black margins of the tertiaries, one of the characteristics of the bird described by Horsfield. PELECANUS MINOR. Pelecanus minor, Riipp. Vog. Nord-Ost-Afrika's (1845), tab. 49, p. 140 ; id. Mus. Sencken. Band ii. p. 185 (1837) ; Reich. Syst. Av. i. t. 37. figs. 2321, 2322. P. mitratus, Licht. Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berl. (1838) 436, t. 3. f. 2; Reich. Svst. Av. vol. i. t. 38. figs. 879, 880?; Blyth, Ibis (1867), p. 178; Sclat. P.Z.S. (1868), p. 266; Jerd. B. of Ind. vol. iii. p. 856. P. onocrotalus, Bon. Consp. ii. p. 162; Layard, B. of South Africa; Blyth, Cat. Birds Mus. Asiat. Soc. Beng. p. 297. sp. 1740. P. megalophus, Heugl. Vog. Nord-Ost-Afrik. (1856) p. 72. no. 1750. |