24 BILLS OF BIRDS 



cormorant, and some are straight at the top, but 

 curved on the under side. This last form is handy 

 for storks, which do not pluck fish out of water so 

 much, but scoop up frogs, crabs, and reptiles from 

 the ground. The ridiculous bill of the puffin, or 

 sea-parrot, is an eccentricity. There may be some 

 idea in it, but I suspect it is an effect of vanity merely, 

 being coloured blue, yellow, and red, and quite in 

 keeping with the other absurdities of the wearer. 



Apart from all these and by itself stands a princely 

 fisher whose bill is no modification, but an original 

 invention and a marvellous one. Larger than a 

 swan and gluttonous withal, the pelican cannot 

 live on single fishes. It has given up angling alto- 

 gether and taken to netting ; and the way in which 

 the net has been constructed out of the pair of 

 forceps provided in the original plan of its con- 

 struction is as well worth your examining as any- 

 thing I know. It is a foot in length, the upper 

 jaw is flat and broad, while the lower consists of 

 two thin, elastic bones joined at the point, a mere 

 ring to carry the curious yellow bag that hangs 

 from it. In pictures this is represented as a creel 

 in which the kind pelican carries home the child- 

 ren's breakfast ; you are allowed to see the tail of 

 a big fish hanging out. But it is not a creel ; it is 

 a net. The great birds, marshalled in line on some 

 broad lake or marsh, and beating the water with 

 their wings, drive the fish before them until they 

 have got a dense crowd huddled in panic and con- 



