French Synonym.—Pélican Blanc: Temminck.
The White Pelican (Pelicanus onocrotalus) is as large as a Swan. Its bill is about fifteen inches in length. Its plumage is white, with a slightly rosy tint, which is brightest in the breeding season; the pinnaries and spurious wings are black; the crest and a few feathers on the neck yellowish.
This species received from the ancients the name of Onocrotalus, because they fancied that they discovered a resemblance in its cry to the braying of an ass. It is very common on the lakes and rivers of Hungary and Southern Russia, as well as on the banks of the Danube. If it is seen in France, it is purely accidental, as it is a rare visitor. A wild rocky shore, where it can look down on the sea, is the favourite haunt of the Pelican; but it is not uncommon for it to perch on trees. The nest is formed of coarse reedy grass, with a lining of finer quality; it is generally made on the ground, and is about eighteen inches in diameter, in which it lays four, sometimes five, white eggs, but more frequently two, slightly oblong, and alike at both ends. Fish forms its principal food, which it captures chiefly in shallow inlets; for it is no diver, although on the wing it dashes upon a fish occasionally from a great height, and that with such velocity that it submerges itself, but its buoyancy brings it immediately to the surface. Occasionally it flies very high, but it generally just poises itself over the water. Notwithstanding its webbed feet, it often perches on trees—a habit which Sonnerat describes as peculiar to the female in the evening, after having fed and protected her young during the day.
The Crested Pelican.
Synonyms.—Pelicanus crispus: Bonaparte, Temminck, Bruck. Pelican: English authors. P. onocrotalus (var. Orientalis): Linn, Pallas, Dalmatian. Riesen-pelikan: German authors.
The Crested Pelican, in common with the White Pelican, inhabits the south-east of Europe and Africa, and is also found in Hungary, Dalmatia, Greece, the Crimea, and the Ionian Islands, as well as in Algeria, and, according to some authors, it is frequently met with in China.
It has white plumage, with the exception that the ends of the feathers of the back and wings are black. The feathers of the head and upper part of the neck are twisted up so as to form a tolerably large tuft or crest: hence the name it bears. Its habitat is principally the marshes round the Black Sea, and the isles adjacent to the mouth of the Danube.
Of their habits, travellers in these regions give very interesting descriptions. Count Mükle states that they are plentiful on the lakes of Missolonghi, and in the marshy grounds near Thermopylæ. In situations incredibly difficult of access, especially on floating islands, scarcely over the water-line, they place their nests thickly together, supported among reeds and rushes. The vicinity of these congregated nests is rendered indescribably offensive by the foul fish they have dropped about, and the disagreeable white dung with which all the neighbourhood is covered.
"Time was," says Mr. W. H. Simpson, "and that not so long ago, when Pelicanus crispus lived in hundreds all the year round, from the rocky promontory of Kourtzalari, hard by the mouth of the Acheloüs, on the western extremity of the lagoon, near the island of Ætolico, up the northern arm, and on the east along the great mud flats which mark the limits of the present delta of Phidaris. Nowadays, however, a solitary individual may be seen fishing here and there throughout the vicinity; the remnant have betaken themselves to the islands which divide the Gulf of Procopanisto from that of Ætolico. Here, towards the end of February last, the community constituted a group of seven nests—a sad falling off from the year 1838, when thirty-four nests were grouped upon a neighbouring islet. As we approached the spot in a boat the Pelicans left their nests, and taking to the water, sailed away like a fleet of stately ships, leaving their preconcerted nursery in possession of the invader. The boat grounded in two or three feet of mud, and when the party had floundered through this, the seven nests were found to be empty. A fisherman had plundered them that morning, taking from each nest one egg, which we afterwards recovered. The nests were constructed in a great measure of the old reed palings used by the natives for enclosing fish, mixed with such pieces of the vegetation of the islet as were suitable for the purpose. The seven nests were contiguous, and disposed in the shape of an irregular cross, the navel of the cross, which was the tallest nest, being about thirty inches high, the two next in line being about two feet, and the two forming the arms being a few inches lower, the two extremes at either end being about fourteen inches from the ground.... The eggs are chalky, like others of the Pelicanidæ, very rough in texture, and some of them streaked with blood."—("Ibis," vii. p. 395.)