one dropped and came up with fish, he was surrounded by a bunch of gulls, each scrambling to get a nose in the pelican's big fish bag.
The summer of 1895, we had a chance to make an intimate study of the white pelican in its home on the lakes of southern Oregon. I have never seen this bird plunge for its fish as the brown pelican does, but those we watched always swam along and with a swift motion scooped up the fish here and there from the surface. The birds were so plentiful about Tule Lake that we were anxious to find where they were nesting.
We set out across Tule Lake for the peninsula which was fifteen miles distant. Our fourteen-foot boat was well loaded, but a good wind to the rear helped us along. The further we went, the stiffer the wind grew. At first we used our big wagon-umbrella as a sail. I stood in the bow and held it, and we plowed along,
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american white pelicans and farallone cormorants nesting together on islet at south end of tule lake, on the california and oregon boundary line
but at times the wind came in puffs, and once or twice our sail was almost demolished and I nearly landed in the water. The boat began to ship water and we both had to exert our best energy at the oars as the wind veered. Not till dusk did we reach the rocky shore of the peninsula, only to find that the treacherous point forbade a landing. Later we found a small sandy beach where we waded ashore and made a rough camp for the night.
This peninsula, upon which we found the crater of an extinct volcano, extended out from the east shore. The neck at the narrowest point was only fifty feet wide and across this we dragged our boat and set out for the lower end of the lake.
We paddled up the inlet for two miles and came to a rocky island containing a colony of Farallone cormorants. Here on the rocks, in a space of twenty-five by
