THE PELICAN. 287 



King Lear, too, likens himself to a pelican when speak- 

 ing of his ungrateful children : — 



" Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers 



Should have thus little mercy on their flesh ? 



Judicious punishment ! 'T was this flesh begot 



Those pelican daughters." 



King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4. 



Again — 



" K. Richard. 



Dar'st with thy frozen admonition 

 Make pale our cheek ; chasing the royal blood 

 With fury from his native residence. 

 Gaunt. 



That blood already, like the pelican, 



Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd. 



Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1. 



It is generally supposed that the fable alluded to is a 

 classical one. But this is not the case. Many and 

 various explanations have been offered as regards its 

 origin, but none is more ingenious, and at the same time 

 more plausible, than the explanation suggested by Mr. 

 Bartlett, the energetic Superintendent of the Zoological 

 Society's Gardens. In a letter addressed to the editor of 

 Land and Water, dated the 3rd April, 1869, Mr. Bartlett 

 says : — 



" Having devoted much attention to investigations upon 



