Characters same as those given for the Family.

172. PELECANUS PHILIPPENSIS Gmelin.
SPOTTED-BILLED PELICAN.

Pa-ga′-la, Manila.

Luzon (Sonnerat, McGregor, Worcester); Mindanao (Mearns). India and Ceylon, south to Burmah and Malay Peninsula, east to China and Hainan.

“Adult in breeding plumage.—(September to February). General color pure white; forehead, top of head, fairly long crest, cheeks, and neck covered with dense curly, very soft, pure white feathers, with their black bases more or less visible; hind neck, from crest to upper back, covered with soft grayish brown feathers, forming a mane; upper back, scapulars, and wing-coverts white, tinged, especially on the lesser wing-coverts, with cream-color; winglet, primaries, and primary-coverts brownish black, with the upper surface of the shafts dark; secondaries grayish brown, paler on the outer web and shading into brownish gray on innermost secondaries; an interscapular line down the middle of upper back; lower back, rump, flanks, under tail-coverts, axillars, and under wing-coverts vinaceous; rest of under parts pure white, chest and upper breast tinged with yellow; tail-feathers ashy, paler toward the tips and with dark shafts. Tail composed of 22 feathers. ‘Bill pinkish yellow, the lateral portions of the upper mandible with large bluish black spots; the nail and terminal halves of both mandibles orange-yellow; central portions of sides of lower mandible smeared with bluish black; pouch dull purple, blotched and spotted with bluish black; eyelids and skin round eye orange-yellow; skin in front of eye livid; legs and feet very dark brown; claws yellowish horn; iris stone-white, varying to pale yellow, clouded with brown.’ (Oates.) Length, 1,295 to 1,500; culmen, 320 to 368; wing, 558 to 610; tail, 203 to 421; tarsus, 84 to 96. The female is somewhat smaller than the male, but not conspicuously so.

“Adult in non-breeding plumage (March-August).—Plumage similar to that of the young after the first molt.

“Nestling.—Covered with white down; iris dark brown; bill pale plumbeous; legs china-white; pouch pale bluish white. The down on the wings soon turns to pale rufous; and the scapulars, when they appear, are brown, edged with ferruginous; the wing-coverts, on making their appearance, are furnished with a dense fringe of rufous down, which, however, soon falls off, leaving the feathers with rufous margins; the scapulars are developed very rapidly, and their ferruginous margins are diminished in extent as the bird grows; the down on the head and neck gives place to brownish feathers, and the crest and loose feathers of the mane on the hind neck soon make their appearance.

“The young bird, when fully fledged, retains its first feathers for at least one year, the only change being that the brown colors become darker and the rufous edgings abraded and consequently less marked. The impressed spots on the bill are not indicated till the sixth month, and even at the end of twelve months these spots are quite indistinct, compared with those of the adult bird. Toward the end of the first year a livid spot appears in front of the eyes and soon becomes clearly defined. The nail and the terminal third of the edges of the bill are yellow, legs and toes flesh-color.