200 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



fisher had another very useful trait. If a dead King- 

 fisher were hung up by a cord, it would point its beak 

 to the quarter whence the wind blew. Shakespeare 

 mentions this property in King Lear (ii. I) : 



" Turn their halcyon beaks 

 With every gale and vary of their masters." 



And Marlowe, in his Jew of Malta (i. i) : 



" But now, how stands the wind ? 

 Into what corner peers my halcyon bill ? " 



THE PELICAN. 



The fable of the Pelican " in her piety, vulning 

 herself," as it is heraldically described is so well known, 



as hardly to be worth 

 mentioning, even to 

 contradict it. In the 

 first place, the her- 

 aldic bird is as un- 

 like the real one, as 

 it is possible to be ; 

 but the legend seems 

 to have had its origin 

 in Egypt, where the 

 vulture was credited 

 with this extraordi- 

 nary behaviour, and this bird is decidedly more in 

 accordance with the heraldic ideal. Du Bartas, singing 

 of " Charitable birds," praises equally the Stork and the 

 Pelican : 



The Stork, still eyeing her deer Thessalie, 

 The Pelican c.>mforteth cheerfully: 



