IN THE ENGLISH FENS. 295 



speak more correctly, a species of pelican, once inhabited 

 the English fens. 



The peat-bogs of Cambridgeshire have yielded of late 

 years a large number of bones of birds, and amongst 

 these has been discovered the wing-bone of a pelican. 

 This interesting discovery was made known by M. Al- 

 phonse Milne-Edwards, in an able article in the " Annales 

 des Sciences Naturelles,"* a translation of which subse- 

 quently appeared in The Ibis.f The author thus antici- 

 pates the objections of the sceptical : — 



" We may be inclined, perhaps, to wonder that a single 

 bone, belonging (as it does) to a young "animal, and con- 

 sequently not presenting all its anatomical characters, 

 should permit the exact recognition of the genus and 

 species of bird to which it belongs. So precise a determi- 

 nation would not be always possible, but in the present 

 case there need be no doubt ; for I have shown, in another 

 work,:]; that the wing-bone in the genus Pelicanus offers 

 extremely clear distinctive peculiarities, which do not 

 allow of its being confounded with that of any other 

 bird." 



The only species of pelican which has been recorded to 

 have occurred in England in recent times, is the great 

 white pelican, P. onocrotalns. 



'■- Cinquieme scries, torn. viii. pp. 285-293. 



f Ibis, 1868, pp. 363-370. 



+ " Oiseaux Fossiles de la France," p. 230. 



