Bougainville endeavoured to bring home a Penguin alive. It became so tame that it followed the person who fed it; it ate bread, flesh, or fish; but it fell away and died. The four-footed Duck of Gesner might have owed its origin to an ill-preserved Penguin. The notion of its being four-footed might have been fortified by some voyager who had seen the bird making progress as Mr. Darwin has above described.
Mr. Webster describes the feathers of Penguins as very different from those of other birds, being short, very rigid, and the roots deeply embedded in fat. They are, in general, flat, and bent backwards, those on the breast being of a satin or silky white, and those on the flippers so short and small as to approach the nature of scales, overlaying each other very closely. The skins are loaded with fat. Their feet are not regularly webbed, but present a broad, fleshy surface, more adapted for walking than swimming. Mr. Webster saw great numbers of Penguins on Staten Island. They are the only genus of the feathered race that are there, and live in the water, like seals. He saw them at the distance of 200 miles from the land, swimming with the rapidity of the dolphin, the swiftest of fishes. When they come up to the surface for fresh breath, they make a croaking noise, dip their beaks frequently in the water, and play and dive about near the surface, like the bonita. Penguins have great powers of abstinence, and are able to live four or five months without food. Stones have been occasionally found in their stomachs, but they generally live on shrimps and crustacea, gorging themselves sometimes to excess. The sensations of these curious birds do not seem to be very acute. Sparrman stumbled over a sleeping one, and kicked it some yards, without disturbing its rest; and Forster left a number of Penguins apparently lifeless, while he went in pursuit of others, but they afterwards got up and marched off with their usual gravity.
The bird is named from the Welsh word, Pengwyn. White head (pen, head; gwyn, white), and is thought to have been given to the bird by some Welsh sailors, on seeing its white breast. Davis, who discovered, in 1585, the straits which are named after him, was of Welsh parents. Might he not have given the name Pengwyn to the bird? Swainson considers the Penguins, on the whole, as the most singular of all aquatic birds; and he states that they clearly point out that nature is about to pass from the birds to the fishes. Others consider Penguins more satisfactorily to represent some of the aquatic reptiles, especially the marine testudinata.
PELICANS AND CORMORANTS.
PELICANS Pelicans are described as a large, voracious, and wandering tribe of birds, living for the most part on the ocean, and seldom approaching land but at the season of incubation. They fly with ease, and even with swiftness. Their bill is long, and armed at the end with an abrupt hook; the width of the gape is excessive; the face is generally bare of feathers, and the skin of the throat sometimes so extensible as to hang down like a bag; it will occasionally contain ten quarts. "By this curious organization," observes Swainson, "the Pelicans are able to swallow fish of a very large size; and the whole family may be termed oceanic vultures."
The neighbourhood of rivers, lakes, and the sea-coast, is the haunt of the Pelican, and they are rarely seen more than twenty leagues from the land. Le Vaillant, upon visiting Dassen Island, at the entrance of Saldanha Bay, beheld, as he says, after wading through the surf, and clambering up the rocks, such a spectacle as never, perhaps, appeared to the eye of mortal. "All of a sudden there arose from the whole surface of the island an impenetrable cloud, which formed, at the distance of forty feet above our heads, an immense canopy, or, rather, a sky, composed of birds of every species and of all colours—cormorants, sea-gulls, sand-swallows, and, I believe, the whole winged tribe of this part of Africa, were here assembled." The same traveller found on the Klein-Brak river, whilst waiting for the ebb-tide, thousands of Pelicans and Flamingoes, the deep rose-colour of the one strongly contrasting with the white of the other.
Mr. Gould says the bird is remarkable for longevity and the long period requisite for the completion of its plumage. The first year's dress is wholly brown, then fine white. The rosy tints are only acquired as the bird advances in age, and five years are required before the Pelican becomes fully mature. The expanse of wings is from twelve to thirteen feet. Although the bird perches on trees, it prefers rocky shores. It is found in the Oriental countries of Europe; and is common on the rivers and lakes of Hungary and Russia, and on the Danube. That the species exists in Asia there is no doubt. Belon, who refers to Leviticus xi. 18, where the bird is noted as unclean, says that it is frequent on the lakes of Egypt and Judæa. "When he was passing the plain of Roma, which is only half a day's journey from Jerusalem, he saw them flying in pairs, like swans, as well as in a large flock. Hasselquist saw the Pelican at Damietta, in Egypt. "In flying, they form an acute angle, like the common wild geese when they migrate. They appear in some of the Egyptian drawings."—(Rossellini.)
Von Siebold saw the Pelican in Japan. "Pelicans," says Dr. Richardson, "are numerous in the interior of the fur countries, but they seldom come within two hundred miles of Hudson's Bay. They deposit their eggs usually on small rocky islands, on the brink of cascades, where they can scarcely be approached; but they are otherwise by no means shy birds. They haunt eddies under waterfalls, and devour great quantities of carp and other fish. When gorged with food they doze on the water, and may be easily captured, as they have great difficulty in taking wing at such times, particularly if their pouches be loaded with fish."