44 ° ^ Hijlory ^/ANIMALS. 
The head is naked at the fides, from the angle of the beak quite op to the eyes 5 
the feathers on it’s crown are long and narrow, and fomewhat emulate a creft ; they 
are of a whitifh-grey, and the whole bird is alfo of the fame colour, except that there 
is fome yellowifhnefs about the neck, and that the fcapi of the feathers on the back 
are black, and the tips of the long feathers of the wings are black. 
The tail is about fix inches long, and is compofed of two and twenty feathers: thefe 
are nearly of an equal length, but the exterior ones, when clofely examined, areVound 
to be fomewhat fhorter than the middle ones; the wings are moderately lono-j the 
large feathers are twenty-eight in each. ? 
The legs are fhort, but very rebuff: the feet are very broad and webbed ; the co¬ 
lour of the legs is a dufky bluifh-grey, and they are naked to the middle joint. 
The bird is, upon the whole, one of the mod f ngular in the world; it has, at firfic 
appearance, much of the general figure of the fwan, but the addition of fo enormous 
and ftrange a beak, to a bird of that kind, is fo perfedly out of the courfe of what 
might have been expeded, that it ftartles and furprizes every body. 
The pelican is a native of fome parts of Afia, and, where it breeds, is ufually very 
plentiful: the food of it is fifh and water infeds, and it frequents equally the fea-fhores, 
and all the larger frefii waters. All the writers on birds have mentioned it. Aldrovand 
calls it Onocrotalus five Pelicanus 5 and mod of the others have taken one or both 
thefe names. 
Pelicanus fubtus albicans reElricibus quatuordecim . 
The Pelicanus , with a white breaft , and withfourteen 
long feathers in the tail. 
%\H COJHIOi 
rant 
This alfo is a very large bird 5 it is equal to a well-fed goofe in fize, and is not 
without it s beauty . the head, neck, back, wings, and rump, are all of one uniform 
colour, which is a deep olive brown, with an additional tinge of a changeable green 
thrown over it, vifible, in a different degree, in different lights: the breaft and °belly 
are of an elegant white, and the contraft of thefe fo very different colours gives a 
very great beauty to the bird : the wings are long, and very well feathered • the long 
feathers are about thirty in each, and the tips of the greater part of thefe, as alfo of 
fome of thofe of the fecond feries, are greyifh : the tail is about feven inches long, and 
is compofed of fourteen feathers } it is hollow within, and, when expanded, is’of a 
rounded figure at the extremity. 3 
The beak is about three inches long ; it is robuft and ftraight to near the extremity, 
where k is hooked : the upper chap is altogether black, and is fharp at the edges; the 
lower nas the edges flatted : the tongue is very inconfiderable, and the opening of the 
mouth is enormoufly wide : the eyes are large, and Hand at a very fmall diftance from 
the angle of the mouth 3 but, what is moft of all remarkable in this bird, and at firft 
fight diftinguifhes it from all the others, to which it has any refemblance it’s in general 
figuie, is, that it has a naked yellow fkin, invefting the bafe of the under chap of 
the beak. The legs are moderately long and naked ; they are covered with a firm and 
hard fkin, divided into a kind of cancellated feales; the feet are very large ; the toes 
are four, they all ftand forward, and are conneded together by a large and firm web 
or membrane: the outer toe of each foot is the longeft, the others are all gradually 
fhorter, and the claw of the middle one is ferrated on the infide. 
This is an extreamly voracious bird; it feeds on fifh, and it’s fwallow is fo extream- 
ly large, that it takes fuch as would Jfurprize any one to conceive, and lets them down 
whole. It frequents the fea, and fometimes the large frefh waters. It breeds in fome 
of the more northern parts of England about the fea-coafts, and that in a very dif¬ 
ferent manner, for it fometimes makes it’s neft in the cracks and caverns of the rocks, 
and fometimes in the tailed: trees. This is the more Angular, as it is a bird of the 
web-footed kind, not any other of that ftruGure of feet being ever known to perch 
upon tiecs. It is a native alfo of many other parts of Europe, All the writers on 
birds 
1 
