! A Centenarian Bird. 
287 
Other travellers mention the pelican, though not 
always by that name. The pelican was generally found 
in company with the flamingo, and there could have 
hardly been a more striking spectacle than flocks of these 
two species of birds, the snowy white of the one con¬ 
trasting with the brilliant red of the other, and attract¬ 
ing and riveting attention even in those lands where 
strange and beautiful sights abounded. Francois Pyrard 
de Laval, who gives an account of a journey to the East, 
writes:— 
“ When I was on the Maldives, there was found a bird which landed in 
an Hand, of prodigious shape and greatnesse. It was three foot high, 
the body exceeding greate, more than a man could fathom: the 
feathers all white as a swan, the feet broad like fowles that swim, the 
necke lialfe a fathom long, the beake halfe an ell; on the upper part at 
the end a kinde of crooked claw, underneath larger then above, whence 
hung a very great and capable bagge of a yellow-gilded colour resem¬ 
bling parchment. The king was much astonished whence this 
creature should come, and what was the nature of it: and enquiring of 
all men which came from other regions, at the last hee happened on 
oertaine strangers, who told him that this creature was particular to 
China, and that it was bred no where else, and the Chinois use them to 
take fish.” (. Purchas , vol. ii. p. 1653.) 
Gonzalo Eerdinando 'de Oviedo, again, in bis report of 
the Indies, addressed to Charles V., the Emperor of Ger¬ 
many, writes :— 
“ In these regions there are likewise found certaine fowles or birds, 
which the Indians call alcatraz: these are much bigger than geese, the 
greatest part of their feathers are of russet colour, and in some parts 
yellow, their bils or beakes are of two spannes in length, and very 
large neere to the head, and growing small toward the point, they have 
great and large throates, and are much like to a fowle which I saw in 
Flanders, in Brussels, in your majesties palace, which the Flemmings 
call Jiaina : and I remember that when your majestie dined one day in 
your great hall, there was brought to your majesties presence a caldron 
of water, with certain fishes alive, which the said fowle did eat up 
whole, and I think verily that that fowle was a fowle of the sea, 
because she had feet like fowles of the water, as have also these alca¬ 
traz i, which are likewise fowles of the sea, and of such greatnesse, that 
