THE PELICAN. 213 



to a branch, almost all of them can, and do fre- 

 quently, perch on trees. 



The Pelican stands at the head of this list, easily 

 distinguished from all others by his capacious pouch, 

 formed of a naked skin, stretched, or rather sus- 

 pended from the two bony branches of his lower 

 mandible. We have already given his picture, in 

 speaking of the pouches peculiar to some birds. 



Few birds have had more marvellous stories told 

 of them than the Pelican, and most of them founded 

 upon some peculiarity, exaggerated by the ignorant. 

 Thus, the old tradition of its drawing blood from its 

 breast to feed its young ones, or as some ancient 

 authors gravely asserted, to bring them to life again, 

 after serpents had squirted venom into the nest and 

 destroyed them*, originated in the bird's habit of 

 pressing its beak to its breast, in order more easily 

 to disgorge the food it had prepared for them. They 

 have again, by others, been considered as purveyors 

 of water to the camels, who instinctively seek in the 

 desert for nests of these birds, which form reservoirs 

 of water, conveyed thither in their pouches, to quench 

 the thirst of their young. True it is, that the pouch of 

 the Pelican is capable of carrying about two gallons, 

 but it is for the conveyance of fish rather than water, 

 that it is serviceable to the bird; and were it ten times 

 more capacious, the dry and parched sand of the burn- 

 ing desert would soon suck up a supply so insigni- 

 ficant for an animal which, at one draught, would 

 take up the water imported by a flight of Pelicans. 



But without going into fabulous history, this bird 

 has true wonders enough to excite our admiration and 

 * Eusebius on Psalm cii. 



