^^S GREAT F E L E C A N. 



LVIII. P E L E C A N *. Gen. Birds, XCIII. 



505. Great. Pelecanus Onocratolus, Lin.SyJ}. 215. — £</au. 92. — Ph. Tran/Axii. ji^ig. - 



Le Pelican, De Buffon, viii. z%z.-^PL Enl, ij.— Latham, iii.- —Lev. MUss 



With a bill fifteen inches long, fiat, dilated near the pointy 

 with a hook at the end, and a ridge from that to the bafe 

 running along the middle y on the midway of the ridge rifes a bony 

 procefs, an inch and feven tenths high, three inches broad at the 

 bafe, and only two tenths of an inch thicks In fome are feveral lef- 

 fer procefles between this and the point : a vaft naked membrana- 

 ceous pouch extends from the point of the lower mandible, widen- 

 ing gradually, and extending ten inches down the front of the neck r 

 on the hind part of the head is a tuft of very narrow delicate fea- 

 thers, not very difcernible, as they ufually lie flat : the reft of the 

 head and neck is covered with moft exquifitely fine down, and very 

 thick fet : the reft of the plumage white, except the primaries and- 

 baftard wings, which are black : legs flefh-color. The largeft of 

 web-footed Water-Fowl. Some are fuperior in Size to a Swan. 

 One was killed off Majorca, which weighed twenty-five pounds. 

 Their extent of wings from eleven to fifteen feet. Notwithftand- 

 ing their great bulk, they foar to a moft furprifing height. This is 

 owing to the amazing lightnefs of the bones, which, all together, do 

 not weigh a pound and a half. Add to this, the quantity of air 

 with which its body is filled, which gives it a wonderful fpecific 

 lightnefs. 

 PiAci. One of the birds from which this defcription was taken, was fliot 



at Augnfia in South Carolina, a hundred and fifty miles from the 



• This genus, in the Br. Zool. Is called by the more familiar name of Corvorant, 

 there being noae of the i'f/fcas fpecies in ^r/V«/ff. 



fea. 



