480 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Genus PELECANUS, Linnmis. 



Six species of this remarkable genus of birds inhabit the 

 Old World, and three America, None of them brave the 

 cold blasts of the north or dwell in the high antarctic regions 

 of the south, but frequent the warmer or more temperate 

 latitudes. Their food consists solely of fish, for procuring 

 which they combine in small companies and drive their finny 

 prey into shallow bays and inlets of the sea. They frequently 

 ascend rivers far into the interior of the respective coimtries 

 they inhabit, and even visit inland lakes and great pools of 

 water in the centre of such countries as Africa and Palestine ; 

 and hence one of the species, either P. onocrotatiis or P. 

 crispus, is spoken of in Sacred Writ as the " Pelican of the 

 Wilderness." 



Australia, like other warm countries, has a Pelican, which 

 is specifically distinct from all the others. 



Sp. 651. PELECANUS CONSPICILLATUS, Temm. 



Australian Pelican. 



New Holland Pelican, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. x. p. 402. 

 Pelecanus conspicillatus, Temm. PI. Col., 276. 



australis, Steph. Cont. of Shaw's Gen. Zool., vol. xiii. part i. 



p. 113. 

 Ne-rim-ba, Aborigines in the neighbourhood of Perth. 

 Beo-dee-lung, Aborigines near the Murray. 



Pelecanus conspicillatus, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. vii. 

 pi. 74. 



Of the members of the genus Pelecanus the present may 

 be regarded as one of the very finest species ; in size it fully 

 equals its European prototypes the P. onocrotalus and P. 

 crispus, and although devoid of crest-plumes, this ornament is 

 fully compensated by the varied markings of the face and 

 mandibles. It is abundant in all the rivers and inlets of the 



