THE PELICAN. 
209 
astonishment. Looking at his vast dimensions, six 
feet from the point of the bill to end of the tail, we 
should suppose that there would be a corresponding 
weight to he borne upwards by its vast, spreading 
wings, twelve feet from tip to tip, and yet its entire 
skeleton does not weigh much more than thirty ounces, 
its bones being so light as to be nearly transparent. 
It possesses also in a high degree the capacity for 
containing air, already spoken of % when we treated 
of the lightness of some birds ; its bones and feathers, 
as well as the space between the skin and the flesh, 
being all reservoirs of air. Thus furnished, the Peli- 
cans will frequently, like the other air-supplied birds, 
rise to an immense height. In one respect, indeed, 
this lightness operates against its procuring fish ; for 
so large a surface, of so light a weight, cannot easily 
be forced under water. 
The Pelicans, aware of their inability to catch their 
prey under water, in consequence of this buoyancy, 
adopt an equally certain mode of supplying them- 
selves ; for, assembling in flocks, they unite their 
forces, and surrounding a shoal of fish, strike the 
water with their wings; and with the noisy splashing, 
frighten and drive them into a narrower compass, so 
that the shoal at length becomes much compressed : 
the upper part is thus raised by the lower, when, at a 
certain signal, all the Pelicans strike the water again, 
and in the general confusion fill their pouches, and 
devour the contents at their leisure. 
The Russians, who have ample means of observing 
their habits, owing to the immense flights arriving 
annually from the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, 
* Yol. i., p. 63. 
VOL. II. 
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