FACT AND FICTION. 
189 
parasites, we conclude that the pelican works only in tlie capacity 
of a companion for man. 
Vainly, says Toussenel, do the princes of zoological science and 
short-siofhted navio-ators assure me that the association of man and the 
pelican in the craft of fishery is a myth ; we give no heed to their 
puerile objections. The best proof of the bird's sociability is his 
passion for music, which he shares in common with all the allies of 
man, with the carp as with the lizard. The pelican is distributed over 
three-fourths of the surface of the globe ; and yet only a single people 
have taken advantage of the purpose for which it was created. His 
training is not more difficult than that of the falcon or the cormorant ; 
it is a hundred times easier than that of the otter, and probably 
would prove much more lucrative. 
History records a thousand traits which bear witness to the com- 
panionability of the pelican, the strong sympathy that draws him 
towards man, and the duration of his attachments. Who knows not 
the story of the pelican which lived for sixteen lustres on terms of 
intimacy with the Emperor Maximilian, faithfully accompanying him 
in all his military expeditions ? On the other hand, it must be 
admitted that in ancient song and legend he figures as the very type 
of sadness ; the melancholy Jaques of the Bird World ; another proof, 
if other proof were needed, of the ignorance and credulity of the 
naturalists of antiquity. 
The various extravagant fictions on record with respect to the 
pelican's immoderate domestic devotion, originated, of course, in his 
habit of extracting the fish in his pouch or game-bag to distribute 
among his offspring. But a similar thing is done every day before our 
eyes by the pigeon, the canary, and the goldfinch, without striking us 
as at all remarkable. The pelican's pouch is certainly a much larger 
crop than that of the pigeon, as the pigeon's is larger than that of the 
goldfinch ; but, like the pigeon's crop or the ruminant's paunch, it is 
but a preparatory stomach, in which the provident animal stores up 
his food to undergo a preliminary softening process, and to be ready at 
hand — or at beak — when it is wanted. 
The pelican's flesh, like that of the cormorant, is uneatable, owing 
