THE WHITE PELICAN 189 
And the colour that the Pelican displays under 
these perfect conditions is a revelation. To the 
most casual it appears pinkish, but to the artistic 
and observant the brilliance of the carmine-pink 
revealed in the shadows, and the shell-like delicacy 
of colour of the feathers seen in full sunlight, is 
simply charming. I regret, however, that no 
amount of artistic enthusiasm can ever find any- 
thing else to praise in its personal appearance, as it 
really is most desperately ugly. It is said, how- 
ever, to be virtuous, and is to this day used as a 
symbol of beautiful self-sacrifice, and as an ecclesi- 
astical emblem of the feeding of the Holy Catholic 
Church. 
As a child I was much troubled with “the 
Pelican in the wilderness,” but recently have been 
greatly relieved to hear, on the best authority, that 
though it says “wilderness” quite distinctly, it 
1 T regret, however, to have to write that this idea of self-sacrifice is 
really all bunkum. The tradition is, that when hard up, and the offspring 
were calling out for the food that was not, the mother bird would lacerate 
her own bosom and with her own life-blood feed and save her loved ones. 
Ages ago some poor, short-sighted man got this extraordinary notion from 
apparently watching the way the young are fed. The Pelican belongs to 
an order of birds that disgorges the food it has caught, in this case fish, 
into the upturned mouths of the young. Had this first short-sighted one 
only known that the Pelican’s Hebrew name K4ath means ‘to vomit,” 
this bird would hardly have been accredited with virtues it does not 
possess, or been painted, sculptured, and enshrined in thousands of holy 
places. 
