PARTRIDGE PELICAN. 175 



PEGGY or PEGGY WHITETHROAT : The WILLOW- WARBLER. 

 (Cheshire, West Yorkshire, Shropshire.) Peggy is also 

 applied to the WHITETHROAT (Notts, and Yorkshire) 

 and the GARDEN- WARBLER, BLACKCAP, WREN and 

 CHIFFCHAFF (Yorkshire). 



PELICAN. Fr. Pelican from Lat. Pelecanus. This name, now 

 restricted to the genus Pelecanus, appears in ancient times 

 to have been applied to several other birds noteworthy 

 on account of their bills, the true Pelican being in fact 

 called Onocrotalus by most ancient writers from Pliny to 

 Turner, while Willughby has "Pelecan, Onocrotalus sive 

 Pelecanus, Aldrov." Thus we find Turner giving Pelecanus 

 as a synonym of the " Shovelard " or SPOONBILL, and 

 he cites Hieronymus's " Pelecani " as being apparently the 

 same. The Pelican of Aristophanes, however, is the Wood- 

 pecker, or joiner-bird, which with its bill hewed out the 

 gates of " Cloud-Cuckoo-town." The derivation, in fact, 

 is from IleycKaw, signifying " to hew with an axe," and 

 the Woodpecker was so called from its pecking, the Pelican 

 from its large bill, and the Spoonbill from the remarkable 

 shape of its bill. That some other birds were also so called 

 is certain, and to which species to refer the legend of the 

 Pelican feeding its young with its own blood is very un- 

 certain. Houghton ("Natural History of the Ancients," 

 p. 191) thinks that the legend refers to a vulture or eagle, 

 and cites the story of Horapollo that the vulture, if it 

 cannot get food for its offspring, opens its thigh and allows 

 them to partake of the blood. He thinks the story was 

 adapted and magnified from the Egyptian fable by the 

 ecclesiastical fathers in their annotations on the Scriptures. 

 Augustine, for instance, says that the male pelicans " are 

 said to kill their young offspring by blows of their beaks, 

 and then to bewail their deaths for the space of three days. 

 At length, however, it is said that the mother bird inflicts 

 a severe wound on herself, pouring the flowing blood over 

 the dead young ones, which instantly brings them to life." 

 Many other writers relate the same story, with variations, 

 and in some accounts the fable is that the female bird feeds 

 her living young in this manner, in which may be traced a 

 return to the Egyptian original. Hieronymus, whose 

 Pelican is, as before mentioned, referred by Turner to the 

 Spoonbill, says that " Pelecani, when they find their young 

 killed by a serpent, mourn, and beat themselves upon their 

 sides, and with the blood discharged, they thus bring back 

 to life the bodies of the dead," which of course is another 



