seem impossible, as the sides of the under chap, from which the bag depends, are not above an inch asunder when the bird's bill is first opened; but then they are capable of great separation; and it must necessarily be so, as the bird preys upon the largest fishes and hides them by dozens in its pouch. Tertre affirms that it will hide as many fish as 'will serve sixty hungry men for a meal. Such is the formation of this extraordinary bird, which is a native of Africa and America. The pelican was once also known in Europe, particularly in Russia; but it seems to have deserted our coasts. This is the bird of which so many fabulous accounts have been propagated; such as its feeding its young with its own blood, and its carrying a provision of water for them in its great reservoir in the desert. But the absurdity of the first account answers itself; and as for the latter, the pelican uses its bag for very different purposes than that of filling it with water.

Its amazing pouch may be considered as analogous to the crop in other birds, with this difference, that as theirs lies at the bottom of the gullet, so this is placed at the top. Thus, as pigeons and other birds macerate their food for their young in their crops, and then supply them, so the pelican supplies its young by a more ready contrivance, and macerates their food in its bill, or stores it for its own particular sustenance.

The ancients were particularly fond of giving this bird admirable qualities and parental affections. Struck, perhaps, with its extraordinary figure, they were willing to supply it with as extraordinary appetites; and having found it with a large reservoir, they were pleased with turning it to the most tender and parental uses. But the truth is the pelican is a very heavy, sluggish, voracious bird, and very ill fitted to take those flights, or to make those cautious

provisions for a distant time, which we have been told it does. Father Labat, who seems to have studied their manners with great exactness, has given us a minute history of this bird, as found in America; and from him I will borrow mine.

The pelican, says Labat, has strong wings, furnished with thick plumage of an ash-colour, as are the rest of the feathers over the whole body. Its eyes are very small, when compared to the size of its head; there is a sadness in its countenance, and its whole air is melancholy; it is as dull and reluctant in its motions as the flamingo is sprightly and active. It is slow of flight; and when it rises to fly, performs it with difficulty and labour. Nothing, as it would seem, but the spur of necessity, could make these birds change their situation, or induce them to ascend into the air; but they must either starve or fly.

They are torpid and inactive to the last degree, so that nothing can exceed their indolence but, their gluttony; it is only from the stimulations of hunger that they are excited to labour, for otherwise they would continue always in fixed repose. When they have raised themselves about thirty or forty feet above the surface of the sea, they turn their head with one eye downwards, and continue to fly in that posture. As soon as they perceive a fish sufficiently near the surface, they dart down upon it with the swiftness of an arrow, seize it with unerring certainty, and store it up in their pouch. They then rise again, though not without great labour, and continue hovering and fishing, with their head on one side as before.

This work they continue with great effort and industry till their bag is full, and then they fly to land, to devour and digest at leisure the fruits of their industry. This, however, it would appear they are not long in performing; for towards night they have

another hungry call, and they again reluctantly go to labour. At night, when their fishing is over, and the toil of the day crowned with success, these lazy birds retire a little way from the shore; and, though with the webbed feet and clumsy figure of a goose, they will be contented to perch no where but upon trees, among the light and airy tenants of the forest. There they take their repose for the night, and of ten spend a great part of the day, except such tinies as they are fishing, sitting in dismal solemnity, and as it would seem half asleep. Their attitude is, with the head resting upon their great bag, and that resting upon their breast. There they remain without motion, or once changing their situation, till the calls of hunger break their repose, and till they find it mdispensably necessary to fill their magazine for a fresh meal. Thus their life is spent between sleeping and eating; and our author adds, that they are as foul as they are voracious, as they are every moment voiding excrements in heaps as large as one's fist.

The same indolent habits seem to attend them even in preparing for incubation, and defending their young when excluded. The female makes no preparation for her nest, nor seems to choose any place in preference to lay in, but drops her eggs on the bare ground to the number of five or six, and there continues to hatch them. Attached to the place, without any desire of defending her eggs or her young, she tamely sits and suffers them to be taken from under her. Now and then she just ventures to peck or to cry out when a person offers to beat her off.

She feeds her young with fish macerated for some time in her bag; and when they cry, flies off for a new supply. Labat tells us that he took two of these when very young, and tied them by the leg to a post stuck into the ground, where he had the pleasure of seeing the old one for several days come to feed them,

remaining with them the greatest part of the day, and spending the night on the branch of a tree that hung over them. By these means they were all three become so familiar, that they suffered themselves to be handled; and the young ones very kindly accepted whatever fish he offered them. These they always put first into their bag, and then swallowed at their leisure.

It seems, however, that they are but disagreeable and useless domestics; their gluttony can scarcely be satisfied; their flesh smells very rancid, and tastes a thousand times worse than it smells. The native Americans kill.vast numbers, not to eat, for they are not fit even for the banquet of a savage, but to convert their large bags into purses and tobacco pouches. They bestow no small pains in dressing the skin with salt and ashes, rubbing it well with oil, and then forming it to their purpose. It thus becomes so soft and pliant that the Spanish women sometimes adorn it with gold and embroidery to make work-bags of.

Yet, with all the seeming hebetude of this bird, it is not entirely incapable of instruction in a domestic state. Father Raymond assures us, that he has seen one so tame and well educated among the native Americans, that it would go off in the morning at the word of command, and return before night to its master, with its great pouch distended with plunder; a part of which the savages would make it disgorge, and a part they would permit it to reserve for itself.

"The pelican," as Faber relates, "is not destitute of other qualifications. One of those which was brought alive to the Duke of Bavaria's court, where it lived forty years, seemed to be possessed of very uncommon sensations. It was much delighted in the company and conversation of men, and in music both vocal and instrumental; for it would willingly stand,"

says he, "by those that sung or sounded the trumpet; and stretching out its head, and turning its ear to the music, listened very attentively to its harmony, though its own voice was little pleasanter than the braying of an ass." Gesner tells us, that the Emperor Maximilian had a tame pelican which lived for above eighty years, and that always attended his army on their march. It was one of the largest of the kind, and had a daily allowance by the emperor's orders. As another proof of the great age to which the pelican lives, Aldrovandus makes mention of one of these birds that was kept several years at Mechlin, and was verily believed to be fifty years old.-We often see these birds at our shows about town.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE ALBATROSS, THE first of the gull kind.

THOUGH this is one of the largest and most formidable birds of Africa and America, yet we have but few accounts to enlighten us in its history. The figure of the bird is thus described by Edwards: "The body is rather larger than that of the pelican; and its wings, when extended, ten feet from tip to tip. The bill, which is six inches long, is yellowish, and terminates in a crooked point. The top of the head is of a bright brown; the back is of a dirty deep spotted brown; and the belly and under the wing is white; the toes, which are webbed, are of a flesh colour."

Such are the principal traits in this bird's figure; but these lead us a very short way in its history, and our naturalists have thought fit to say nothing more. However, I am apt to believe this bird to be the same