XXVIII 
BEAKS 
347 
uncommon to see ten or a dozen of them perched on 
one buoy. 
When cormorants dive for fish they use the bill as a 
pair of forceps : they swim and dive with perfection, 
but rise from the water clumsily, and their gait on land 
is an awkward waddle, but they perch with ease on 
rocks, posts, and boughs. Their upright position when 
perching gives them the appearance of black bottles or 
other objects hung up to dry. 
Herons abound around the lakes of the Rift Valley 
and the Victoria Nyanza. There are many species of 
them, in(duding the Goliath Heron with a huge bill. 
This bird stands at the edge of a spit of land erect and 
stately ; suddenly the head darts forward to seize a fish, 
which has come within the range of his spear-like bill. 
The goliath heron is a majestic bird. 
The Pelican, with its huge bill and Img, is well known 
to all who visit the Zoological Gardens. Feeding the 
pelicans is one of the advertised events in most 
menageries, and the way they scoop up fishes resembles 
fishermen catching fishes with hand-nets. 
Although the pelican appears such a clumsy bird on 
land on account of the short legs and enormous body, it 
can fly buoyantly and swiftly, and it is interesting to 
watch a flock of pelicans manoeuvring in the air like a 
battalion of soldiers at drill. 
Pelicans frequent the big lakes in Eastern Ethiopia ; 
they haunt the shallow margins where fishes are 
plentiful. When the capacious bag attached to its bill 
is full of fishes, the bird waddles to the land and 
greedily swallows them. 
It is somewhat difficult to understand how this un¬ 
couth bird has won such an mportant position in ecclesi¬ 
astical heraldry. In Christian Art the pelican is a 
symbol of charity and an emblem of Jesus Christ. This 
is probably founded on the venerable legend that the 
“ pelican in its piety ” feeds her chicks with her own 
blood. This has no foundation in fact, and much 
