292 THE PELICAN. 



and there lays. The people surround the place with dried 

 cow's dung, and set fire to it. The pelican sees the smoke, 

 and endeavours to extinguish the fire with her wings, the 

 motion of which only fans the flame. Thus she burns 

 her wings, and falls an easy prey to the fowlers. Some 

 Egyptian priests, considering this behaviour evinces great 

 love of its young, do not eat the bird ; others, again, 

 thinking it is a mark of folly, eat it. The Egyptians, 

 however, did believe in a bird feeding its young with its 

 blood, and this bird is none other than a vulture. Hora- 

 pollo says (i. ii) that a vulture symbolises a compassion- 

 ate person (fAa'j/iova), because during the 120 days of its 

 nurture of its offspring, if food cannot be had, ' it opens 

 its own thigh and permits the young to partake of the 

 blood, so that they may not perish from want.' This is 

 alluded to in the following lines by Georgius Pisidas : 



TOV {JinpOV ZKTffJLOVTtQ, 17/UCtrtUjUt VOtC 



Te ti)Trvpov<n ra 



Amongst classical authors, the love of the vulture for its 

 young was proverbial. But when do we first hear of the 

 fable of the pelican feeding its young with its blood ? In 

 Patristic annotations on the Scriptures. I believe this is 

 the answer. The ecclesiastical fathers transferred the 

 Egyptian story from the vulture to the pelican, but 

 magnified the already sufficiently marvellous fable a 

 hundredfold, for the blood of the parent was not only 



