i.
■
P lace and
M anners.
latable *, reaching eight or nine inches down the neck j this is
bare of feathers, and in fome capable of containing many quarts
of water : the gape is very wide f-
On the top of the upper mandible runs a rib of crimfon 5 the
reft of it is of a pale red at the bafe, and grows yellow towards the
point j the under one is of a pale red, and the pouch red or yel-
lowifh: the tongue very fmall, fcarcely diftinguilhable: the irides
hazel: fides of the head bare of feathers, being covered only with
a flefti-coloured Ikin, in which the eyes are placed : the hind
head fomewhat crefted : the plumage wholly white, with a tinge
of flelh-colour, except the baftard wing and prime quills, which
are black : legs lead-colour: claws grey.
The bill in young birds is wholly yellow.
This fpecies is common in Tome of the warmer parts o f Europe,
on the continent, but chiefly frequents the torrid zone. In the
Ruffian dominions they are in incredible numbers about the
Cafpian and Black Seas, and fometimes proceed a good way up
the rivers which fall into them, coming and going with the Swans,
Geefe, Storks, and other birds; are very fcarce towards the Eafi,
and feldom met with fo far North as the Sibirian lakes, though
now and then feen on that of Baikal j often met with on many
JIB
ei ill
* This is often ufed by the common failors for tobacco-pouches, bringing it into
form merely by putting in a large Jlone or cannon-ball, and hanging the bag to
dry in this ftate. We have, however, feen the pouch drejjed, and made into a
lady*s work-bag, and elegantly ornamented ; the appearance of it in this ftate is
not unlike a well-drefledparchment or vellum Ikin, but very pliant.
In one fhewn fome years lince in London, the keeper could ealily put in his
head $ and mention has been made of another, fliewn in France, whofe gape was
fo wide as to admit the legs of a man with boots on.—Salerno Orn. p* 369.
2 of
of the coafts of the Mediterranean, and the iflands therein * j are
common in Greece, and faid to build in fome of the rivers which
flow into the Danube f , ftraying fometimes into Switzerland, one
having been Ihot at Zurich, but fo rare there as not to be known
by the common people; are now and then feen m France, one of
them having been killed in the province of Dauphiny, and another
on the river Saone, in that of Lorrain J. I find an account like-
wife of one being Ihot in England, at Horfey Fen, in May, 1663,
which meafured three yards from’ tip to tip of the wing ||; and
Dr. Leith allures me, that a few years fince, in the month of May,
he faw a Pelican fly oyer his head, near the feat of Sir Gregory
Page, on Blackheath, in Kent; but this was of a brownilh colour,
moft likely our brown fpecies. In Africa thefe are pretty frequent
throughout j coming there in September, and flying in
flocks, forming a wedge lhape with the point foremoft, like wild
Geefe. In Damietta, and other parts of Egypt, not uncommon, as
well as on the coaft of Senegal and parts adjacent, that of Guinea,
and the Gold Coaft, and from thence to the Cape of Good Hope: in
the bays and rivers of the laft, very frequent §, and in many other
parts both of Afia and Africa mentioned by various authors. The
female makes a neft of reedy grafs, in the moffy, turfy places,
chiefly in the iflands of the lakes, remote from man ; it is a foot
and a half in diameter, deeply hollowed, and filled within with
* In the Aland of Majorca. 4 Hifi. des Oif. t IS.
|| See MS. in Sr. Mu/. N“ 1830, 16 E. in a memoir by T. Brown, of Nor-
nuicb.—-A quere is here put, whether it might not be one of the King’s Pelicans,
kept at St. James’s, which had been loft about the fame time.
§ In Sea-Cow river, in December, Phil. ¥ranf. vol. lxvi. p. z g i; and by hundreds
in Verloore valley, Id. p. 309*
V ol. I I I. 4 E foft