It was, and I believe still is, an opinion prevalent in some parts of England, that a King-fisher, suspended by the tail or beak, will turn round as the wind changes. To this fancy, allusion is made in King Lear (act ii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. viii. p. 307),—
“Renege, affirm and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
Knowing nought, like dogs, but following.”
The Poet delights to tell of self-sacrificing love; and hence the celebrity which the Pelican has acquired for the strong natural affection which impels it, so the tale runs, to pour forth the very fountain of its life in nourishment to its young. From Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in the island of Cyprus, whose Physiologvs was printed by Plantin in 1588, we have the supposed natural history of the Pelicans and their young, which he symbolizes in the Saviour. His account is accompanied by a pictorial representation, “ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΠΕΛΕΚΑΝΟΣ,”—Concerning the Pelican (p. 30).
Epiphanius, 1588.
The good bishop narrates as physiological history the following,—
“Beyond all birds the Pelican is fond of her young. The female sits on the nest, guarding her offspring, and cherishes and caresses them and wounds them with loving; and pierces their sides and they die. After three days the male pelican comes and finds them dead, and very much his heart is pained. Driven by grief he smites his own side, and as he stands over the wounds of the dead young ones, the blood trickles down, and thus are they made alive again.”
Reusner and Camerarius both adopt the Pelican as the emblem of a good king who devotes himself to the people’s welfare. For Law and for Flock, is the very appropriate motto they prefix; Camerarius simply saying (ed. 1596, p. 87),—