Part 18

With the Pelican has been associated an old popular error, which has not long disappeared from books of information: it is that of the Pelican feeding her young with her blood. In reference to the actual economy of the Pelican, we find that, in feeding the nestlings--and the male is said to supply the wants of the female, when sitting, in the same manner--the under mandible is pressed against the neck and breast, to assist the bird in disgorging the contents of the capacious pouch; and during this action the red nail of the upper mandible would appear to come in contact with the breast, thus laying the foundation, in all probability, for the fable that the Pelican nourishes her young with her blood, and for the attitude in which the imagination of painters has placed the bird in books of emblems, &c., with the blood spirting from the wounds made by the terminating nail of the upper mandible into the gaping mouths of her offspring.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," says:--"In every place we meet with the picture of the Pelican opening her breast with her bill, and feeding her young ones with the blood distilling from her. Thus it is set forth, not only in common signs, but in the crest and scutcheon of many noble families; hath been asserted by many holy writers, and was an hieroglyphic of piety and pity among the Egyptians; on which consideration they spared them at their tables."

Sir Thomas refers this popular error to an exaggerated description of the Pelican's fondness for her young, and is inclined to accept it as an emblem "in coat-armour," though with great doubt.

In "A Choice of Emblems and other Devices," by Geoffrey Whitney, are these lines:--

"The Pelican, for to revive her younge, Doth pierce her breste, and geve them of her blood. Then searche your breste, and as you have with tonge, With penne procede to do your countrie good: Your zeal is great, your learning is profounde; Then help our wantes with that you do abound."

In George Wither's "Emblems," 1634, we find:--

"Our Pelican, by bleeding thus, Fulfill'd the law, and cured us."

Shakspeare, in "Hamlet," thus alludes to the popular notion:--

"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And like the kind, life-rendering Pelican, Repast them with my blood."

In a holier light, this symbol signifies the Saviour giving Himself up for the redemption of mankind. In Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art," vols. i., xx., xxi., we find in the text, "God the Son (is symbolized) by a Pelican--'I am like a Pelican of the wilderness.' (Psalm cii. 6.)" To which is added the following note:--"The mediæval interpretation of this symbol is given by Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, Lion King, nephew of the poet, in his MS. 'Collectanea,' preserved in the Advocates' Library. Edinburgh."

Sir Thomas Browne hints at the probability of the Pelican occasionally nibbling or biting itself on the itching part of its breast, upon fulness or acrimony of blood, so as to tinge the feathers in that part. Such an instance is recorded by Mr. G. Bennett of a Pelican living at Dulwich, which wounded itself just above the breast; but no such act has been observed among the Pelicans kept in the menagerie of the Zoological Society or elsewhere; and the instance just recorded was probably caused by local irritation.

Of the same genus as the Pelican is the Cormorant, an inhabitant of Europe generally and of America. It swims very deep in the water; even in the sea very little more than the neck and head are visible above the surface. It is a most expert diver, pursuing the fish which forms its food with great activity under water; it is said to be very fond of eels. It perches on trees, where it occasionally builds its nests, but it mostly selects rocky shores and islands. Upon the Fern Islands its nest is composed of a mass of sea-weed, frequently heaped up to the height of two feet. The species is easily domesticated; and its docility is shown by the use often made of Cormorants in fishing. Willughby, quoting Faber, says:--"They are wont in England to train up Cormorants to fishing. When they carry them out of the room where they are kept they take off their hoods, and having tied a leather thong round the lower part of their necks, that they may not swallow down the fish they catch, they throw them into the river. They presently dive under water, and there for a long time, with wonderful swiftness, pursue the fish, and when they have caught them they arise presently to the top of the water, and pressing the fish tightly with the bills, they swallow them, till each bird hath after this manner devoured five or six fishes. Then their keepers call them to the fish, to which they readily fly, and little by little, one after another, vomit up all the fish, a little bruised with the nip they gave them with their bills." When they have done fishing they loosen the string from the birds' necks, and for their reward they throw them part of the prey they have caught, to each, perchance, one or two fishes, which they catch most dexterously in their mouths as they are falling in the air. Pennant quotes Whitelock, who said that he had a cast of them, manned like hawks, and which would come to hand. He took much pleasure in them, and relates that the best he had was one presented him by Mr. Wood, master of the corvorants (as the older name was) to Charles I. Pennant adds, it is well known that the Chinese make great use of a congenerous sort in fishing, and that not for amusement but profit.

Sir George Staunton, in his account of his Embassy to China, describes the place where the Leu-tze, or famed fishing-bird of China, is bred and instructed in the art and practice of supplying his owner with fish in great abundance. The bird, a Cormorant, is figured in Sir George's work, with two Chinese fishermen carrying their light boat, around the gunnel of which their Cormorants are perched by a pole resting on their shoulders between them. On a large lake are thousands of small boats and rafts built entirely for this species of fishery. On each boat or raft are ten or a dozen birds, which, on a signal from the owner, plunge into the water; and it is astonishing to see the enormous size of fish with which they return grasped between their bills. They appeared to be so well trained that it did not require either ring or cord about their throats to prevent them from swallowing any portion of their prey except what the master was pleased to return to them for encouragement and food. The boat used by these fishermen is remarkably light, and is often carried to the lake, together with the fishing-birds, by the men who are there to be supported by it.

Belon gives an amusing account of the chase of this bird during calms, especially in the neighbourhood of Venice: the hunt is carried on in very light boats, each of which being rowed by five or six men, darts along the sea like the bolt from an arbalest, till the poor Cormorant, who is shot at with bows as soon as he puts his head above water, and cannot take flight after diving to suffocation, is taken quite tired out by his pursuers.

Cormorant fishing has occasionally been reintroduced upon our rivers. In 1848 there were brought from Holland four tame Cormorants, which had been trained to the Chinese mode of fishing. Upon one occasion they fished three miles on a river, and caught a pannier-full of trout and eels. A ring placed round their necks to prevent them from swallowing large fish, but which leaves them at liberty to gulp down anything not exceeding the size of a gudgeon. The birds on these occasions are put into such parts of the river as are known to be favourite haunts of fish; and their activity under water in pursuit of fish can be compared to nothing so appropriate as a swallow darting after a fly.

Blumenbach tells us the Cormorant occasionally increases in a few years to many thousands on coasts where it was previously unknown. It varies much both in size and colour. The late Joshua Brookes, the surgeon, possessed a Cormorant, which he presented to the Zoological Society.

The Cormorant has a small sabre-shaped bone at the back of its vertex; which bone may serve as a lever in throwing back the head, when the animal tosses the fishes into the air and catches them in its open mouth. The same motion is, however, performed by some piscivorous birds, which are not provided with this particular bone.

Aubrey, in his "Natural History of Wilts," quotes the following weather presage from May's "Virgil's Georgics":--

"The seas are ill to sailors evermore When Cormorants fly crying to the shore."

TALKING BIRDS, ETC.

Certain birds are known to utter strange sounds, the origin of which has much puzzled the ornithologists. The Brown Owl which hoots, is hence called the Screech Owl: a musical friend of Gilbert White tried all the Owls that were his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at a concert pitch, and found they all hooted in B flat; and he subsequently found that neither Owls nor Cuckoos keep to one note. The Whidah Bird, one of the most costly of cage-birds, rattles its tail-feathers with a noise somewhat resembling that made by the rattle-snake. The Chinese Starling, in China called Longuoy, in captivity is very teachable, imitating words, and even whistling tunes: we all remember Sterne's Starling. The Piping Crow, to be seen in troops in the Blue Mountains, is named from its ready mimicry of other birds: its imitation of the chucking and cackling of a hen and the crowing of a cock, as well as its whistling of tunes, are described as very perfect: its native note is said to be a loud whistle. The Blue Jay turns his imitative faculty to treacherous account: he so closely imitates the St. Domingo Falcon as to deceive even those acquainted with both birds; and the Falcon no sooner appears in their neighbourhood than the jays swarm around him and insult him with their imitative cries; for which they frequently fall victims to his appetite. The Bullfinch, according to Blumenbach, learns to whistle tunes, to sing in parts, and even to pronounce words. The note of the Crowned Crane has been compared by Buffon to the hoarseness of a trumpet; it also clucks like a hen. Mr. Wallace, in his "Travels on the Amazon," saw a bird about the size and colour of the Raven, which uttered a loud, hoarse cry, like some deep musical instrument, whence its Indian name, Ueramioube, Trumpet Bird: it inhabits the flooded islands of the Rio Negro and the Solimoes, never appearing on the mainland. The only sound produced by Storks is by snapping their bills. The Night Heron is called the Qua Bird; from its note Qua.

The Bittern, the English provincial names of which are the Mire-drum, Bull of the Bog, &c., is so called for the bellowing or drumming noise or booming for which the bird is so famous. This deep note of the "hollow-sounding Bittern" is exerted on the ground at the breeding season, about February or March. As the day declines he leaves his haunt, and, rising spirally, soars to a great height in the twilight. Willughby says that it performs this last-mentioned feat in the autumn, "making a singular kind of noise, nothing like to lowing." Bewick says that it soars as above described when it changes its haunts. Ordinarily it flies heavily, like the Heron, uttering from time to time a resounding cry, not bellowing; and then Willughby, who well describes the bellowing noise of the breeding season, supposes it to be the Night Raven, at whose "deadly voice" the superstitious wayfarer of the night turned pale and trembled. "This, without doubt," writes Willughby, "is that bird our common people call the Night Raven, and have such a dread of, imagining its cry portends no less than their death or the death of some of their near relations; for it flies in the night, answers their description of being like a flagging collar, and hath such a kind of hooping cry as they talk of." Others, with some reason, consider the Qua Bird already mentioned (which utters a loud and most disagreeable noise when on the wing, conveying the idea of the agonies of a person attempting to vomit) to be the true Night Raven. The Bittern was well known to the ancients, and Aristotle mentions the fable of its origin from staves metamorphosed into birds. The long claw of the hind toe is much prized as a toothpick, and in the olden times it was thought to have the property of preserving the teeth.

The Greater-billed Butcher Bird, from New Holland, has extraordinary powers of voice: it is trained for catching small birds, and it is said to imitate the notes of some other birds by way of decoying them to their destruction.

The mere imitative sounds of Parrots are of little interest compared with the instances of instinct, apparently allied to reason, which are related of individuals. Of this tribe the distinguishing characteristics are a hooked bill, the upper mandible of which is moveable as well as the lower, and not in one piece with the skull, as in most other birds, but joined to the head by a strong membrane, with which the bird lifts it or lets it fall at pleasure. The bill is also round on the outside and hollow within, and has, in some degree, the capacity of a mouth, allowing the tongue, which is thick and fleshy, to play freely; while the sound, striking against the circular border of the lower mandible, reflects it like a palate: hence the animal does not utter a whistling sound, but a full articulation. The tongue, which modulates all sounds, is proportionally larger than in man.

The Wild Swan has a very loud call, and utters a melancholy cry when one of the flock is killed; hence it was said by the poets to sing its own dying dirge. Such was the popular belief in olden times; and, looking to the anatomical characteristics of the species, it was, in some degree, supported by the more inflated wind-pipe of the wild when compared with that of the tame species. The Song of the Swan is, however, irreconcileable with sober belief, the only noise of the Wild Swan of our times being unmelodious, and an unpleasing monotony.

The Laughing Goose is named from its note having some resemblance to the laugh of man; and not, as Wilson supposes, from the grinning appearance of its mandibles. The Indians imitate its cry by moving the hand quickly against the lips, whilst they repeat the syllable wah.

The Cuckoo may be said to have done much for musical science, because from that bird has been derived the minor scale, the origin of which has puzzled so many; the Cuckoo's couplet being the minor third sung downwards.

The Germans are the finest appreciators of the Nightingale; and it is a fact, that when the Prussian authorities, under pecuniary pressure, were about to cut down certain trees near Cologne, which were frequented by Nightingales, the alarmed citizens purchased the trees in order to save the birds and keep their music. Yet one would think the music hardly worth having, if it really sounded as it looks upon paper, transcribed thus by Bechstein, from whom it is quoted by Broderip:--