206 THE PELICAN. 



again reluctantly go to labor. At night, when their fishing 

 is over, and the toil of the day crowned with success, 

 these lazy birds retire a -little way from the shore ; and, 

 though with the webbed feet and clumsy figure of a goose, 

 they will be contented to perch no where but upon trees, 

 among the light and airy tenants of the forest. There 

 they take their repose for the night ; and often spend a 

 great part of the day, except such times as they are fish- 

 ing, sitting in dismal solemnity, and, as it would seem, 

 half asleep. Their attitude is, with the head resting upon 

 their great bag, and that resting upon their breast. There 

 they remain, without motion, or once changing their situa- 

 tion, till the calls of hunger break' their repose, and till 

 they find it indispensably necessary to fill their magazine 

 for a fresh meal. Thus their life is spent between sleep.- 

 ing and eating ; and our author adds, that they are as foul 

 as they are voracious, as they are every moment voiding 

 excrement in heaps as large as one's fists. 



The same indolent habits seem to attend them even in 

 preparing for incubation, and defending their young when 

 excluded. The female makes no preparation for her nest, 

 nor seems to choose any place in preference to lay in ; but 

 drops her eggs on the bare ground to the number of five 

 or six, and there continues to hatch them. Attached to the 

 place, without any desire of defending her eggs or her 

 young, she tamely 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 for some time 

 in her bag, and when they cry, flies off for a new -supply. 

 Labat tells us that he took two of these when young, and 

 tied them by the leg to a post stuck into the ground, when 

 he had the pleasure of seeing the old one for several days 

 come to feed them, remaining with them the greatest part 

 of the day, and spending the night on the branch of a tree 

 that hung over them. By these means they were all three 



