^ THE PELICAN. 275 



Observations by another author. 



sary to fill their magazine for a fresh meal. Thus 

 their life is spent between sleeping and eating ; 

 and being as foul as they are voracious, they are 

 every moment voiding excrements in heaps as 

 large as one's fist." 



" The same indolent habits/' says another au- 

 thor, " seem to attend them even in preparing for 

 incubation, and defending their young when ex- 

 cluded. The female makes no preparation for 

 her nest, nor seems to chuse any place in pre- 

 ference to lay in ; but drops her eggs on the bare 

 ground to the number of five or six, and there 

 continues to hatch them. Attached to the place, 

 without any desire of defending her eggs or her 

 young, she tamely sits and suffers them to be 

 taken from under her. Now and then she just 

 ventures to peck, or to cry out when a person 

 offers to beat her off." 



The pelican, however, is by no means destitute 

 of natural affection, either towards its young, or 

 towards others of its own species, as will appear 

 from the annexed engraving. Clavigero, in his 

 History of Mexico, says that some of the Ame- 

 ricans, in order to procure a supply of fish with- 

 out any trouble, cruelly break the wing of a live 

 pelican, and after tying the bird to a tree, con- 

 ceal themselves near the place. The screams of 

 the miserable bird attract other pelicans to the 

 place, which, he assures us, eject a portion of the 

 provisions from their pouches for their impri- 

 soned companion: as soon as the men observe 

 C 2 M 2 



