94 The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 
appeared remarkable to a greater or less extent to observers 
of past ages. Now the pelican is a very remarkable bird. 
The wonderful pouch of its lower mandible marks it at once ; 
and such a peculiarity one would naturally suppose would 
find especial mention in any account, whether descriptive or 
verbal, that we may meet with. Yet, strange to say, in the 
case of the pelican, its very name is a misnomer. Our 
English word is from the Greek -rreXe/cdv or ireXeKLvo^, a name 
manifestly derived from TreXercdco, "to hew with an axe." The 
name thus derived was first used by the Greeks to denote 
" a woodpecker." It was the woodpeckers, ireXeKaves, who 
acted as the clever carpenters that hewed out the gates of the 
City of Cloud — Cuckoo-borough, in the birds of Aristophanes, 
and the name is admirably suited to the woodpecker, which 
uses its bill in making holes in trees. Aristotle uses the word 
ireXeKav for the large web-footed bird of that name, but 
nowhere alludes to its extraordinary bill. He says it is 
migratory, and devours shell-fish. The etymology of the 
Greek word would show that the name was originally used 
for the woodpecker. Subsequently, it would appear, the 
name was applied to denote the web-footed bird, probably on 
account of its large bill. iElian also mentions this bird under 
the name of pelican, but says nothing about its pouch. The 
pelican, under the name onocrotalus, is Avell described by Pliny, 
who is the first writer, as far as I can learn, to speak of 
a pouch under the throat. But the name pelicanus never 
found its way into classical authors. It is used by Jerome in 
his commentary on the 101st Psalm. The story about the 
pelican feeding its young with its own blood was originally 
told of the vulture, and found its way from Egyptian fable 
into the writings of Patristic theologians. In the devices of 
a bird tearing its breast and feeding its little ones with its 
own blood, so frequently seen on monuments, and in old 
church architecture, you will always find that the bird is not 
a pelican, but a vulture, or an eagle. The Avord onocrotalus, 
used by Pliny, and evidently borrowed from the Greeks — but 
by whom, and when, and where used by that people I know 
not — is both in its definition and in the account which Pliny 
gives, admirably suited to the pelican, and to no other bird. 
