58 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



extremities of the figure." That the people remembered 

 this is shown by the fact that zoological gardens have lost 

 many specimens of these birds, which seem to have a very 

 weak sense of taste, because of their swallowing copper 

 coins and other metallic objects fed to them by experi- 

 mental visitors, which they could neither assimilate nor 

 get rid of. It is quite likely that the bird's reputation for 

 living on iron was derived from similarly feeding the cap- 

 tive specimens kept for show in Rome and various East- 

 ern cities, the fatal results of which were unnoticed by 

 the populace. The wild ostrich contents itself with tak- 

 ing into its gizzard a few small stones, perhaps picked 

 up and swallowed accidentally, which assist it in grinding 

 hard food, as is the habit of many ground-feeding fowls. 

 Much the same delusion exists with regard to the emeu. 



If I were to repeat a tithe of the absurdities and 

 medical superstitions (or pure quackery) related of birds 

 in the "bestiaries," as the books of the later medieval pe- 

 riod answering to our natural histories were named, the 

 reader would soon tire of my pages; but partly as a 

 sample, and partly because the pelican is not only 

 familiar in America but is constantly met in proverbs, in 

 heraldry, and in ecclesiastical art and legend, I think it 

 worth while to give some early explanations of the 

 curious notion expressed in the heraldic phrase "the 

 pelican in its piety." It stands for a very ancient mis- 

 understanding of the action of a mother-pelican alight- 

 ing on her nest, and opening her beak so that her young 

 ones may pick from her pouch the predigested fish she 

 offers them within it. As the interior of her mouth is 

 reddish, she appeared to some imaginative observer long 

 ago to display a bleeding breast at which her nestlings 

 were plucking. Now observe how, according to Hazlitt, 84 



