PELICAN. 



295 



shoals of surface-swimming fish, more particularly of 

 sprats and herrings, which habit has obtained for it the 

 name of " herring gant " among our fishermen ; it thus 

 happens that it is seldom seen from the shore, and 

 generally passes unnoticed. Occasionally a small flock 

 makes its appearance in the summer months (cf. " Zoolo- 

 gist," 1872, p. 3226), fishing off our coast, at which time 

 they are doubtless wanderers in search of food from 

 their nearest breeding station, the Bass Eock, or pos- 

 sibly barren birds. 



PELICAN (Pelicanus onocrotalus ?) It may be well 

 to mention here that both in his " Account of Birds 

 found in Norfolk/' and in his letters to Merrett, 

 who had included this as a British species, Sir Thomas 

 Browne mentions the pelican as having been killed in 

 Norfolk. In the list of birds we learn that " An onocrotalus 

 or pelican shott upon Horsey fenne, 1663, May 22 wh, 

 stuffed and cleansed I yet retaine it was three yards and 

 a half between the extremities of the wings the chowle 

 and beake answering to the vsuall description the 

 extremities of the wings for a spanne deepe browne the 

 rest of the body white, a fowle wh none could remember 

 upon this coast about the same time I heard one of 

 the king's pellicans was lost at St James perhaps this 

 might bee the same." In the letter to Merrett dated 

 September 13th, 1668, he writes as follows : " In your 

 Pinax I find onocrotalus, or pellican ; whether you 

 mean those at St James or others brought ouer, or 

 such as have been killed here, I know not. I haue one 

 hangd up in my howse, which was shott in a fenne 

 ten miles of, about four yeares ago; and, because it 

 was so rare, some coniectured it might bee one of 

 those which belonged vnto the King, and flewe 

 away." Whether such were the case or not it is 

 impossible to say ; but, either as an escape or a genuine 

 " straggler," the Norfolk broads of those days would 

 have proved a very suitable resting-place for the wan- 

 derer. That the pelican, however, in former days fre- 

 quented the fens of the Eastern Counties is proved by a 

 humerus of this bird, given to the Zoological Museum at 



