PELAYO 



PELICAN 



15 



etymologv of the term : cydopes = builders of a 

 cycle,' or ring-wall. See CYCLOPES. 



PelayO, said to have been the first Christian 

 king of Spain, seems to have made head against 

 the Arabs in Asturias (q.v.) in the 8th century. 

 See SPAIN. 



Pelesch, a royal castle of Koumania, built by 

 Doderer of Vienna in 1873-84, in a romantic situa- 

 tion on the south side of the Transylvanian Alps, 

 70 miles N. of Bucharest. 



Pelew Islands, also PALAU, a group in the 

 Pacific belonging to Germany, lie south-east of the 

 Philippines, at the western extremity of the Caroline 

 Archipelago, with which they are sometimes classed. 

 There are about twentv-five. islands, mountainous, 

 wooded, and surrounded with coral-reefs. Total 

 area, 170 sq. in. The principal is Babel tliouap or 

 Babel top. The soil is rich and fertile, and the 

 climate healthy. Bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, sugar- 

 cane, palms, areca-nuts, yams, &c. are grown. 

 Turtles, trepang, and fish abound on the coasts. 

 The inhabitants, about 10,000 in number, are of the 

 Malay race. The men go entirely naked and the 

 women nearly so. They are described as being 

 good-natured, and have peculiar social institutions 

 the women too. The islands were discovered by 

 the Spaniards in l/il.'l, ami visited again in 1696. 

 See Semper, Die Palauinseln (1873); Kubary, ihe 

 xozitiltn Einrii-litiai'im dtr Palauer (1885); anil 

 Marche, Lin-mi i-l I'liliiiutn (Paris, 1887). 



IVlhillll. THE FAMILY OF, takes its name from 

 a castle and lordship in the north-east of Hereford, 

 and was elevated to the peerage in the person of 

 Sir Thomas Pelham, who in 1 706 was created Baron 

 Pelham, and married Lady Grace Holies, sister of 

 the Earl of Clare. His successor, THOMAS PEL- 

 HAM HOI.I.KS, Duke of Newcastle, and minister of 

 the first two Georges, was born in 1693, and 

 educated at Westminster and Clare Hall, Cam- 

 bridge. In 1711 he succeeded to the vast estates 

 of his maternal uncle the Duke of Newcastle, and 

 next year to the peerage of his father, the first 

 Lord Pelham. George I. rewarded his services by 

 cn-ating liim Earl of Clare (1714) and Duke of 

 Newcastle in Northumberland (1715). He was 

 made Lord-lieutenant of Middlesex and Notting- 

 ham, and a Knight of the Garter in 1718, and in 

 the same year he married Lady Henrietta Godol- 

 pliin, granddaughter of the great Marlliorougli. 

 in 1724 he succeeded Carteret as Secretary of 

 State, and held the office continuously under 

 NValpole and his successors for thirty years, 

 although a man of no particular ability except in 

 parliamentary tactics. In 1754 he succeeded his 

 brother, Henry Pelham, as premier, but retired in 

 November I7.~>ti to give place to the Duke of 

 Devonshire, himself lieing rewarded with the title 

 of Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme, with special 

 remainder to the Earl of Lincoln, his niece's 

 husband. In July 1757 he was again premier, 

 and compelled to take the first William Pitt into 

 his ministry and to give him the lead in the House 

 "I ''ominous, and the supreme direction of the wnr 

 and of foreign affairs. A succession of brilliant 

 victories followed Newcastle lieing only nominal 

 head of the ad ministration and the great com- 

 moner had almost brought, the war to a successful 

 termination, when the accession of George III. led 

 to tin; resignation of Pitt, and the replacement of 

 Newcastle, in May 1762, by Lord Bute, as head of 

 the ministry. Newcastle declined a preferred pen- 

 <ion, with the remark that if he could no longer 

 serve he would not burden his country. In the 

 Buckingham ministry, formed in 17'!5, he filled for 

 a few months the office of Privy Seal. He died 

 in August 1768. Hi* younger brother, HENRY 

 PELHAM (1696-1754), took an active part in sup- 



pressing the rebellion of 1715, became Secretary 

 of State for War in 1724, and was a zealous sup- 

 porter of Walpole. In 1743 he was made head of 

 a ministry as First Commissioner of the Treasury 

 and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Events during 

 his ministry were the war of the Austrian succes- 

 sion, the Jacobite rebellion of the '45, the success- 

 ful financial bill of 1750 (see GEOKGE II.), the 

 reform of the calendar, and Lord Hardwick's Mar- 

 riage Act. His father's ducal title descended to 

 Henry, ninth Earl of Lincoln, whose great-grand- 

 son, 



HENRY PELHAM-CLINTON, fifth Duke of New- 

 castle, and twelfth Earl of Lincoln, was born 22d 

 May 1811, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford. 

 He represented South Notts in parliament from 

 1832 to 1846, when he was ousted by the influence 

 of his father, the fourth duke, for supporting Sir 

 Koliert Peel in his free-trade measures. He was a 

 Lord of the Treasury in the brief Conservative 

 administration of 1834-35, and First Commissioner 

 of Woods and Forests in the Peel administration, 

 1841-46. He was then made Irish Secretary, but 

 went out of office with his chief a few months 

 afterwards. He succeeded to the dukedom in 1851, 

 and returned to office in 1852, filling the post of 

 Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Aberdeen 

 government. The war with Russia broke out, and 

 in June 1854 it was found necessary to create a 

 Secretary of State for War, ami the new office was 

 assigned to Newcastle. The terrible sufferings of 

 the British army before Sebastopol in the winter 

 months of 1854 raised a storm of popular discon- 

 tent, and when the House of Commons determined 

 to inquire into the conduct of the war the duke 

 resigned. Newcastle was Colonial Secretary in the 

 second administration of Lord Palmerston, and 

 held the seals with general approval from 1859 till 

 his death, 18th Octolxjr 1864. 



Pt'licail (Peleranut), a genus of birds compris- 

 ing a family, Pelecanidie, having a very long, large, 

 flattened b'ill, the upper mandible terminated by 

 a strong hook, which curves over the tip of the 

 lower one ; l>eneath the lower mandible a great 

 pouch of naked skin is appended ; the tongue 

 is verv short, and almost rudimentary ; the face 

 and ilironi are naked, the wings of moderate 

 length, the tail rounded. The species are widely 

 distributed, frequenting the shores of the sea, lakes, 

 and rivers, and feeding chiefly on fish. Although 

 birds of powerful wing, they are seldom seen at a 

 great distance from land. All of them are birds of 

 large size. They take their prey by hovering over 

 the water, and plunging upon it when it appears. 

 They often fly in large flocks, and the sudden swoop 

 of a flock of pelicans at a shoal of fish is a striking 

 and beautiful sight. They store up their prey in 

 their pouch, from which they bring it out at leisure, 

 either for their own eating or to feed their young. 

 The pouch is capable of being wrinkled up into 

 small size, and of being greatly distended. The 

 Common Pelican (P. onocrotalvs) is as large as a 

 swan, white, slightly tinged with flesh colour, and, 

 in old birds, the breast golden yellow. The quill- 

 feathers are black, but are scarcely seen except 

 when the wings are expanded. It is a native of 

 the eastern parts of Europe and of many parts of 

 Asia and Africa, and frequents both the seacoast 

 and also rivers and lakes. It makes a nest of grass 

 on the ground in some retired spot near the water, 

 often on an island, and lays two or three white 

 eggs. The parents are said to carry water to their 

 young, as well as food, in their pouch. During the 

 night the pelican sits with its bill resting on its 

 breast. The nail or hook which terminates the bill 

 is red ; and it has l>cen supposed that the fable of 

 the pelican feeding its young with blood from its 

 own breast originated in its liabit of pressing the 



