THE PELICAN. ()17 



uuinstructed. Happily, those have given place to spectacles more accordant with 

 increasins intellijreiiec, and to accounts derived from faithful observation. 



The pelicans are large and heavy birds, with a great extent of wing : tliey arc 

 excellent swimmers. The expansive poucli will hold a considerable qiuintit}' of fish, and 

 thus enables the bird to dispose of the superfluous quantity which may be taken during 

 its fishing expeditions, either for its own consumption or the support of its young. 



Pelicans are residents on the banks of rivers and lakes, and on the sea-coasts : they 

 habitually feed on fish, though they sometimes devour small qua Irupeds and reptiles : 

 they are capable of rapid flight, and have an extraordinary power of rising on high. 

 When they perceive from an elevated position a fish or fishes on the surface of the 

 water, they dart down with inconceivable rapidity, and, flapping their large wings so as 

 to stun their prey, fill their pouohes, and then retire to the shore to satisfy their 

 voracious appetite. The fish thus carried away in the poucli undergo a sort of 

 maceration before thej^ are received into the stomach ; and this grinding process renders 

 the food fit for the young bii-ds. 



The male is said to supj^l}- the wants of the female in the same manner as the jiarent 

 birds make provision for the nestlings. The under mandible is pressed against the neck 

 and breast to assist the bird in disgorging the contents of its capacious pouch ; and 

 during this action the red nail with which the upper mandible is provided a^^poars to 

 come in contact with, the breast. T|jis singular process probably laid the foundation 

 for the fable of the pelican nourishing her young with her blood, and for the attitude 

 adopted by painters in portraying ths bird with the blood spirting from the wounds made 

 by the terminating nail of the upper mandible into the gaping mouths of her offspring. 



Pelicans are rarely seen further than twenty leagues from the land. They appear to 

 be, to a certain extent, gregarious. Le Yaillant, on his visit to Dassew Eyland, at the 

 entrance of Suldauha Bay, witnessed an extraordinary spectacle: — "All of a sudden, 

 there arose from the whole surface of the island an impenetrable cloud, which formed, 

 at the distance of forty feet above our heads, an immense canopy, or rather a sky, com- 

 posed of birds of every species and of all colours : cormorants, sea-gulls, sea-swallows, 

 pelicans, and, I believe, the whole winged tribe of this part of Africa, were here 

 assembled. All their voices, mixed together and modified according to their different 

 kinds, formed such a horrid music, that I was every moment obliged to cover my head to 

 give a little relief to my ears. 



" The alarm which we spread was so much the more general among these innumerable 

 legions of birds as we principally disturbed the females which were then sitting. They 

 had nests, eggs, and young to defend : they were like furious harpies let loose against 

 us, and their cries rendered us almost deaf They often flew so near us that they flapped 

 their wings in our faces ; and though we fired our pieces repeatedly, we were not able to 

 frighten them : it seemed almost impossible to disperse this cloud. We could not move 

 one step without crushing either their eggs or their young ones ; the earth was entirelv 

 strewed with them." Le Vaillaut found on the Klein-Brak River, without waitino- for 

 the ebb-tide, thousands of pelicans and flamingoes, the deep rose colour of the one 

 strongly contrasting with the white of the other. 



Pelicans are found in the Oriental countries of Europe ; they are common on the 

 rivers and lakes of Himgary and Russia ; and they are tolerably abundant on the 

 Danube. M. Temmiuck, who gives the above habitats, had an adult specimen sent from 

 Egypt, and another from the Cape of Good Hope ; but they differed only from those of 

 Europe in their greater dimensions. There is no doubt the species exists in Asia. 

 Belon, who refers to Leviticus xi. 18, where the bird is described as unclean, states, that 

 it is frequent on the lakes of Egypt and Judea. When he was passing the plain of 

 Roma, which is only half a day's journej' from Jerusalem, he saw them flying in pairs. 



