General colour of plumage a rosy white; the larger flight-feathers of wing, black; beak grey; pouch, a bright yellow; eyes red. Entire length, 60 inches.
THE Pelican has the honour of being, in Egypt, as far as sheer length of wing goes, the largest bird that flies; for the span of wings from tip to tip has been recorded as twelve feet. I believe the span of the Griffon Vulture is only about eight feet. Thirty years ago Pelicans were more often seen than they are to-day. This does not necessarily mean that they are less numerous, but only that, from some cause or another, they do not come within range of observation. I think the traffic on the river having so altered is the probable explanation. I can only recall one case of late, of seeing Pelican on a sandbank, and that was very early in the morning, practically daybreak. Years ago it was not an uncommon thing to see hundreds resting and recruiting on some lonely reach of the river. Captain Shelley says that in “April 1870, below Edfoo, we met with an immense flock of several
thousands, passing low along the river on their way north, and although fired at several times they still kept streaming onwards in one continuous flock.” Nowadays you will quite possibly see immense flocks going south in November, or north in the spring, but they will all be flying high and well out of gun-shot. The largest flock I ever saw was in December of 1907 when living at Deir-el-Bahari. I was working outside the hut there, when some noise made me look up, and I saw an amazing sight, hundreds and hundreds of these great birds flying round and round in circles high above the chalk cliff. This was about 2 P.M., and they remained thus slowly circling round and round till nearly 5 P.M., when gradually in small detachments they dwindled away, flying in a southerly direction. At times they came sufficiently low for me to see distinctly the yellow pouch hanging from the under-bill, but then again they would rise in great spiral curves to such a height that even with my pet glass they were almost invisible. With every new curve they showed some alteration of colour, so that sometimes they seemed a coral pink all over, and then again with some altered angle in relation to the sun they were a pure snow white. The two hours or more that they were over just this one spot where Queen Hatshepsut’s temple stands, I worked hard at trying to sketch them till my eyes got blinded by staring up into the blue, and aching with trying to follow some individual bird sweeping right above my head. None but those who have tried it knows what an exhausting thing this is; every bird is changing its place continually, one after another comes sweeping by, turning, rising, falling, interlacing, till one has to absolutely cease looking and close one’s weary eyes. I heard later the rumour that this great flock rested the night on the top of one of the hills a mile farther back, and at dawn were all away south.
Where, however, they can be still seen throughout the winter months and comparatively close at hand is on Lake Menzaleh. I saw them there in March, but by the 12th of April I could not see a single bird. The wonderful colour, a pale coral pink, that they show under the bright Egyptian sky, is something of a surprise to those who have only seen faded stuffed specimens in a museum, or the woebegone individuals in a menagerie. No one interested in birds should neglect the Cairo Zoological Gardens at Giza; there you will see all sorts of hot climate beasts and birds in the perfection of condition that they never show in our colder climes. And the colour that the Pelican displays under these perfect conditions is a revelation. To the most casual it appears pinkish, but to the artistic and observant the brilliance of the carmine-pink revealed in the shadows, and the shell-like delicacy of colour of the feathers seen in full sunlight, is simply charming. I regret, however, that no amount of artistic enthusiasm can ever find anything else to praise in its personal appearance, as it really is most desperately ugly. It is said, however, to be virtuous, and is to this day used as a symbol of beautiful self-sacrifice, and as an ecclesiastical emblem of the feeding of the Holy Catholic Church.[7]
[7] I regret, however, to have to write that this idea of self-sacrifice is really all bunkum. The tradition is, that when hard up, and the offspring were calling out for the food that was not, the mother bird would lacerate her own bosom and with her own life-blood feed and save her loved ones. Ages ago some poor, short-sighted man got this extraordinary notion from apparently watching the way the young are fed. The Pelican belongs to an order of birds that disgorges the food it has caught, in this case fish, into the upturned mouths of the young. Had this first short-sighted one only known that the Pelican’s Hebrew name Kâath means “to vomit,” this bird would hardly have been accredited with virtues it does not possess, or been painted, sculptured, and enshrined in thousands of holy places.