WATER FOWL. 361 



one's hand down into the bag, it may be distend- 

 ed at pleasure. The skin of which it is formed 

 will then be seen of a bluish ash-colour, with 

 many fibres and veins running over its surface. 

 It is not covered with feathers, but a short downy 

 substance as smooth and as soft as satin, and is 

 attached all along the under edges of the chap, 

 to be fixed backward to the neck of the bird by 

 proper ligaments, and reaches near half way 

 down. When this bag is empty it is not seen ; 

 but when the bird has fished with success, it is 

 then incredible to what an extent it is often seen 

 dilated. For the first thing the pelican does in 

 fishing is to fill up the bag, and then it returns 

 to digest its burden at leisure. When the bill is 

 opened to its widest extent, a person may run his 

 head into the bird's mouth, and conceal it in this 

 monstrous pouch, thus adapted for very singular 

 purposes. Yet this is nothing to what Ruysch 

 assures us, who avers that a man has been seen to 

 hide his whole leg, boot and all, in the monstrous 

 jaws of one of these animals. At first appearance 

 this would seem impossible, as the sides of the 

 under chap, from which the bag depends, are not 

 above an inch asunder when the bird's bill is first 

 opened ; but then they are capable of great separa- 

 tion ; and it must necessarily be so, as the bird 

 preys upon the largest fishes, and hides them by 

 dozens in its pouch. Tertre affirms that it will 

 hide as many fish as will serve sixty hungry men 

 for a meal. 



Such is the formation of this extraordinary bird, 

 which is a native of Africa and America. The 



