4(56 



SWI3IMING BIRDS. 



skin of their throat is more or less extensible, and their tongue is very 

 small. 



The Pelicans, properly so called (Pelicanus), are provided with 

 a beak remarkable for its great length ; it is flattened horizon- 

 tally, very broad, and terminated by a large hook. The lo^Yer 

 mandible is very remarkable: it consists of two long flexible 

 branches that sustain a wide muscular bag. The Common Pelican 

 {Pdicanus Onocrotalus) is about the size of a swan ; its plumage 

 white, with a roseate tint, and the hook at the end of its beak blood- 

 red ; it is able to cai'ry provisions and water in the bag beneath its 

 throat. 



The Cormorants (Phalacrocorax *') have the beak elongated and 

 compressed, and the end of the upper mandible hooked ; the claw oi 



Fir 304 — corMOP \nt 



the middle toe is toothed like a saw. These birds are proverbially 

 voracious and destructive to fish. They make their nests in the clefts 

 of rocks, and amongst trees, where they lay three or four eggs. 



The Frigate Birds (Pelicanus aqiiilas) difter from the Cormorants 

 in having a forked tail, and both mandibles hooked at the end. Their 

 flight is so powerful that they are everywhere to be seen m tropical 

 seas at immense distances 'from land, sweeping do-wn upon flying 

 flshes, or pursuing other bii'ds, which they compel to disgorge their 

 prey. Tiie spread of their wings is sometimes ten feet from tip to tip. 



* (paXuKpos, phalacros, hald-headed ; Kopa^, coiax, a crmc—hald- 

 headed croiv. 



