294 THE PELICAN 



translation from the original Hebrew. "The word 

 (Kcik-ath'}, which is rendered TrAticav in the Septuagint, 

 and Pelican, or Onocrotalus, in the Vulgate, is derived 

 from the verb NJ3 ' to vomit,' and signifies ' a vomiter.' 

 This name, evidently a general one, may have been 

 intended by the Hebrew writers to apply either to such 

 birds as, like the pelican and many others, possess the 

 power of disgorging their food on being disturbed or 

 alarmed, or to such birds as are accustomed to nourish 

 their young from their own crops ; and, in the latter case, 

 the curious bloody secretion of the flamingo may well 

 have given rise to the superstition concerning the pelican. 

 I may observe, as an evidence that the translators did not 

 consider the Hebrew word to be other than a general 

 name, that Ka-atJH is sometimes rendered ' cormorant ' 

 (Isa. xxxiv. ii ; Zeph. ii. 14). For further information 

 concerning this point, I would refer your readers to the 

 ' Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance,' p. 1083 ; Bate's 

 'Hebrew Dictionary,' p. 538; and Parkhurst's 'Hebrew 

 Dictionary,' pp. 631, 632." 



Shakespeare, doubtless, had not investigated the 

 subject so narrowly, but was content to accept the 

 common story as he found it, and to apply it meta- 

 phorically as occasion required. 



The majority of the birds mentioned in this chapter are 

 not natives of the British Islands, but, strange as it may 

 appear, there is evidence to show that the pelican, or, to 



