466 



SWIMMING BIKDS. 



skin of their throat is more or less extensible, and their tongue is very 

 small. 



The Pelicans, properly so called (Pelicanus), are provided with 

 a beak remarkable for its great length ; it is flattened horizon- 

 tally, very broad, and terminated by a large hook. The lower 

 mandible is very remarkable: it consists of two long flexible 

 branches that sustain a wide muscular bag. The Common Pelican 

 (Pelicanus Onocrotalus) is about the size of a swan ; its plumage 

 white, with a roseate tint, and the hook at the end of its beak blood- 

 red ; it is able to carry provisions and water in the bag beneath its 

 throat. 



The Cormorants (Phalacrocorax *) have the beak elongated and 

 compressed, and the end of the upper mandible hooked ; the claw of 



FIG. 394. 



the middle toe is toothed like a saw. These birds are proverbially 

 voracious and destructive to fish. They make their nests in the clefts 

 of rocks, and amongst trees, where they lay three or four eggs. 



The Frigate Birds (Pelicanus aquilas] differ from the Cormorants 

 in having a forked tail, and both mandibles hooked at the end. Their 

 flight is so powerful that they are everywhere to be seen in tropical 

 seas at immense distances r from land, sweeping down upon flying 

 fishes, or pursuing other birds, which they compel to disgorge their 

 prey. The spread of their wings is sometimes ten feet from tip to tip. 



* <t>d\aKp6s, phalacros, bald-headed; Kopa, coiax, a crow bald- 

 headed crow. 



