DALMATIAN PELICAN. 131 



The Pelicans form a distinct and •well-marked genus, -with wliicli, 

 thanks to the spirited proprietors of the Zoological Gardens, most 

 people are very familiar. The singular character of the birds in the 

 gardens — their awkward gait, their voracity, the huge bag suspended 

 beneath the lower mandible, which they fill with the fish most 

 nimbly by a kind of side shovelling or scooping with their long flat 

 beak, at once arrest the attention and excite the interest of the 

 observer. But look at the Pelican in his own wild haunts — look at 

 him dashing like a lump of lead into the sea after his prey, or 

 waiting about eddies and waterfalls with the same object — and then 

 watch them in immense troops, flying in the form of an oblique line 

 or semicircle, and he appears a very diflerent bird to those which 

 we see in confinement. 



Pelicans live upon rivers, lakes, or on the sea-coast. They usually 

 fly low, but sometimes ascend to a great height. They are good 

 swimmers, and can perch upon trees, but they do not prefer this 

 mode of resting, generally taking to the water. They feed principally 

 in the morning and evening, and continue catching fish until their 

 huge aesophageal pouches are filled, when they retire to some lone 

 and insulated retreat to digest their enormous meals, as though aware 

 of their danger when gorged. 



This pouch, which holds in some instances as much as a dozen 

 quarts of water, prevents the proper articulation of their voice, which 

 is, consequently, as Nuttall has remarked, "a mere hoarse, hollow, 

 and indistinct sound, sometimes bordering on a grunt." Latham says 

 that they will sometimes unite together in the form of a circle, and 

 beat the water with their wings, so as to frighten the fish, which 

 consequently become an easy prey. They breed on rocks near the 

 water, generally in places difiicult to get at. They lay from two to 

 four eggs. They are very much attached to their young; hence the 

 old legend that they will feed them with their own blood, which is 

 however, a mere fable, arising from the fact that they feed them by 

 disgorging the contents of their pouches. Equally fabulous is the 

 story of their bringing water in their pouches into the desert, to 

 sustain the camel in his thirsty journey. The Egyptians, however, 

 call the Pelican the Camel of the Eiver, and the Persians the Water 

 Carrier, which has evidently arisen from their performing this ofiice 

 for their young. 



The Pelican is said to attain to a great age. Gesner, on the authority 

 of Cullman, gives an instance of one which lived eighty years. Its 

 fiesh is bad both to taste and smell. 



I have selected the rarer of the two European species to notice 



