1869.| MR. D. G. ELLIOT ON THE GENUS PELECANUS. 577 
The general form is stout, heavy, and cumbersome, the apparently 
disproportioned bill and deep pendent gular sac giving to the bird an 
awkward, rather stupid appearance. The body is long, flattened be- 
neath ; the neck long and thick. Head rather small, oblong, rather 
flat on the top. The plumage is soft and downy upon the head and 
neck, excepting the feathers of the crest when this appendage is pre- 
sent; that of the upper parts is usually lanceolate, rather loose; of 
the breast and under parts thick and elastic, impervious to water. 
The bill of the Pelican is of peculiar form, fitted to sustain the 
pouch which is suspended from it. It is long, rather slender, 
generally straight, and flattened. The upper mandible is convex at 
the base, more so in some species than in others, becoming flattened, 
spreads gradually, and reaches its widest part near the end, when it 
narrows rapidly and terminates in a nail, or hooked point. The 
ridge is convex at first and then follows the shape of the mandible, 
narrowing towards the tip. The nail is curved sharply, concave 
beneath, with the point acute. The crura of the lower mandible 
are separated, and only meet at the tip; to these, filling up the 
interspace which thus occupies the whole length of the bill, is 
appended the huge gular pouch, being a huge exaggeration of the 
membrane usually observed at the base of the under mandible in 
other species of birds. At the base, and extending for about one- 
half of the length of the bill, the lower mandible is wider than the 
upper, but contracts and fits into the upper mandible for the 
remainder of its length. Upon the ridge of the upper mandible, in 
one species, a bony crest is present in the males during the breeding- 
season, but does not remain after that period. The pouch is formed 
of skin, which is thin, filled with small blood-vessels, semitrans- 
parent, and capable of great distention. It extends in a greater 
or less degree down the throat, reaching its greatest development in 
P. moline. 
The nostrils, although visible and open in the young, are hidden 
in the adults, in a groove which runs along the side of the ridge on 
the upper mandible. The bill is covered with an irregular, rough, 
somewhat scaly skin. 
The wings are long, when folded reaching to about half the 
length of the tail; the second and third primaries usually the long- 
est; the secondaries are incurved, long—sometimes, when the wing is 
closed, extending beyond the primaries. The feathers of the coverts 
are long and narrow, in some species lanceolate. 
The tail is rather short, broad, and rounded, composed, in the 
different species, of various numbers of feathers, which are pointed. 
The coverts are long, both upper and under covering two-thirds of 
the length of the tail. 
Thighs usually within the body ; the tarsus rather short, in some 
species being two-thirds the length of the middle toe without the 
claw, in others about equal to it. It is covered with hexagonally 
shaped scutellze, largest anteriorly. Feet rather small; toes on an 
equal plane, all connected by a web. Claws short, stout, curved, 
acute, concave beneath. 
