The Pelican, (Pelecanus Onocrotalus) says Nuttall, the largest of web-footed water fowl, known from the earliest times, has long held a fabulous celebrity for a maternal tenderness that went so far as to give nourishment to its brood at the expense of its own blood. Its industry and success as a fisher, at this time, allows of a more natural and grateful aliment for its young, and pressing the well-stored pouch to its breast, it regurgitates the contents before them, without staining its immaculate robe with a wound.

In America, pelicans are found in the North Pacific, on the coasts of California and New Albion; and from the Antilles and Terra Firma, the Isthmus of Panama and the Bay of Campeachy, as far as Louisiana and Missouri. They are very rarely seen along the coast of the Atlantic, but stragglers have been killed in the Delaware, and they are known to breed in Florida. In all the far countries, they are met with up to the 61st parallel of northern latitude. Indeed, in these remote and desolate regions they are numerous, but seem to have no predilection for the sea coast, seldom coming within two hundred miles of Hudson’s Bay. They there, according to Richardson, deposit their eggs usually on small rocky islands, on the banks of cascades, where they can scarcely be approached, but still are by no means shy. They live together, generally in flocks of from six to fourteen, and fly low and heavily, sometimes abreast, at others in an oblique line; and they are often seen to pass over a building, or within a few yards of a party of men, without exhibiting any signs of fear. For the purpose of surprising their prey, they haunt eddies near water-falls, and devour great quantities of carp and other fish. They can only swallow, apparently, when opening the mouth sideways, and sometimes upward, like the shark. When gorged with food, they doze on the water, or on some sand shoal projecting into or surrounded by it, where they remain a great part of their time in gluttonous inactivity, digesting their over-gorged meal. At such times they may be easily captured, as they have then great difficulty in starting to flight, particularly when the pouch is loaded with fish. Though they can probably perch on trees, which I have never seen them attempt, they are generally on wing, on the ground, or in their favorite retreat.

In the old continent, the pelican is said to rest on the ground in an excavation near to the water, laying two or three, and rarely four eggs, which are pure white, and of nearly equal thickness at both ends. Their nesting in deserts remote from water, and the story of the parents bringing water for their young in the pouch, in such quantities as to afford drink for camels and wild beasts, appears only one of those extravagant fictions, or tales of travelers, invented to gratify the love of the marvelous. Yet so general is the belief in the truth of this improbable relation, that the Egyptians style it the camel of the river, and the Persians Tacab, or the water-carrier. The pouch of the pelican is, however, very capacious, and besides drowning all attempts at distinct voice, it gives a most uncouth, unwieldy, and grotesque figure to the bird with which it is associated. The French very justly nick-name them grand gosiers, or great throats; and as this monstrous enlargement of the gullet is capable of holding a dozen quarts of water, an idea may be formed of the quantity of fish it can scoop, when let loose among a shoal of pilchards or other fish, which they can pursue in the course of their migrations.