239 



fcare ground, to the number of five or six, and there 

 continues to hatch them. Without any desire of de- 

 fending her eggs or her young, she gamely sits and 

 suffers them to be taken from under her. Now and 

 -then she just ventures to peck or to cry out when a 

 person offers to beat her off. She feeds her young with 

 fish macerated in her bag, and when they cry flies off 

 for a new supply. 



They are but disagreeable and useless domestics * 

 their gluttony can scarcely be satisfied ; their flesh 

 smells very rancid, and tastes a thousand times worse 

 than it smells. The native Americans kill vast num- 

 bers ; not to eat, for they are not fit even for the 

 banquet of a savage, but to convert their large bags 

 into purses and tobacco-pouches. They bestow no 

 small pains in dressing it with salt and ashes, rubbing 

 it well with oil, and then forming it to their purpose. 

 It thus becomes so soft and pliant, that the Spanish 

 women sometimes adorn it with gold and embroidery to 

 snake work-bags of. 



Yet with all the hebetude of this bird; it is not en- 

 tirely incapable of instruction. The emperor Maxi- 

 milian had a tame pelican which lived for above eighty 

 years, and always attended his army on the march. 



The Albatross is one of the largest and most formi- 

 dable birds of Africa and America. It is as large as a 

 goose, of a brown colour, and is one of the most fierce 

 of the aquatic tribe, not only living upon fish, but also 

 such small water- fowl as it can take by surprise. It 

 preys, as all the gull kind do, upon the wing, and 

 chiefly pursues the flying-fish. These are every mo. 

 mcnt rising to escape from their pursuers of the deep, 

 only to encounter equal dangers in the air. Just as 

 they rise, the dolphin is seen to dart after them, but 

 generally in vain. The gull has more success, and 

 often takes them at their rise, while the albatross pur- 

 sues the gull, so that the whole horizon presents but 

 one living picture of rapacity and evasion* 



But though this bird be one of the tyrants of the 



