in ornithology, a genus belonging to the order of auers. The bill is stout, without teeth, and crooked at the point; the face is naked, and the feet are palmated. There are eight species, principally distinguished by the shape of their tails. The most remarkable are,

1. The carbo, or corvornant, sometimes exceeds seven pounds in weight; the length three feet four; the extent four feet two; the bill dusky, five inches long, destitute of nostrils; the base of the lower mandible is covered with a naked yellow skin, that extends under the chin, and forms a sort of pouch; a loose skin of the same colour reaches from the upper mandible round the eyes and angles of the mouth; the head and neck are of a footy blackness; but under the chin of the male the feathers are white; and the head in that sex is adorned with a short loose pendant crest; in some the crest and hind-part of the head are streaked with white. The covert of the wings, the scapulars, and the back, are of a deep green, edged with black, and glowed with blue; the quill-feathers and tail dusky; the legs are short, strong, and black; the middle claw ferrated on the inside; the irises are of a light ash- colour.

These birds occupy the highest parts of the cliffs that impend over the sea: they make their nests of sticks, sea-tang, grass, &c. and lay six or seven white eggs of an oblong form. In winter they disperse a- long the shores, and visit the fresh waters, where they make great havoc among the fish. They are remark- ably voracious, having a most sudden digestion, pro- moted by the infinite quantity of small worms that fill their intestines. The corvornant has the rankest and most disagreeable smell of any bird, even when alive. Its form is disagreeable; its voice hoarse and croaking, and its qualities base. These birds, however, have been trained to fish like falcons to fowl. Whitelock tells us, that he had a cast of them manned like hawks, and which would come to hand. He took much plea- sure in them; and relates, that the best he had was one presented him by Mr Wood, master of the corvornants to Charles I. It is well known that the Chinese make great use of these birds, or a congene- rous sort, in fishing; and that not for amusement, but profit.

2. The graculus, or shag, called in the north of England the crane, is much inferior in size to the cor- vornant: the length is 27 inches; the breadth three feet six; the weight three pounds three quarters. The bill is four inches long, and more slender than that of the preceding: the head is adorned with a crest two inches long, pointing backward; the whole plumage of the upper part of this bird is of a fine and very shin- ing green; the edge of the feathers a purplish black; but the lower part of the back, the head, and neck, wholly green; the belly is dusky; the tail of a dusky hue, tinged with green; the legs are black, and like those of the corvornant. Both these kinds agree in their manners, and breed in the same places; and, what is very strange in webbed-footed birds, will perch and build in trees: both swim with their head quite erect, and are very difficult to be shot; for, like the grebes and divers, as soon as they see the flash of the gun, they pop under water, and never rise but at a considerable distance.

3. The bassanous, gannet, or solan goose, weighs seven pounds; the length is three feet one inch; the breadth six feet two inches. The bill is six inches long, strait almost to the point, where it inclines down; and the sides are irregularly jagged, that it may hold its prey with more security: about an inch from the base of the upper mandible is a sharp process pointing forward; it has no nostrils; but in their place a long surrow, that reaches almost to the end of the bill: the whole is of a dirty white, tinged with ash-colour. The tongue is very small, and placed low in the mouth; a naked skin of a fine blue surrounds the eyes, which are of a pale yellow, and are full of vivacity: this bird is remarkable for the quickness of its flight. Martin tells us, that solan is derived from an Irish word expressive of that quality.

From the corner of the mouth is a narrow slip of black bare skin, that extends to the hind-part of the head; beneath the chin is another, that, like the pouch of the Pelican, is dilatable, and of size sufficient to contain five or six entire herrings; which in the breeding season it carries at once to its mate or young.

The young birds, during the first year, differ greatly in colour from the old ones; being of a dusky hue, speckled with numerous triangular white spots; and at that time resemble in colours the speckled diver. Each bird, if left undisturbed, would only lay one egg in the year; but if that be taken away, they will lay another; if that is also taken, then a third; but never more that season. Their egg is white, and rather less than that of the common goose; the nest is large, and formed of any thing the bird finds floating on the water, such as grass, sea-plants, shavings, &c. These birds frequent the Isle of Alisa, in the frith of Clyde; the rocks adjacent to St Kilda; the Stack of Souliferry, near the Orkneys; the Skellig Isles, off the coasts of Kerry, Ireland; and the Bass Isle, in the frith of Edinburgh: the multitudes that inhabit these places are prodigious. Dr Harvey's elegant account of the latter will serve to give some idea of the numbers of these, and of the other birds that annually migrate to that little spot.

"There is a small island, called by the Scotch Bass Island, not more than a mile in circumference; the surface is almost wholly covered during the months of May and June with nests, eggs, and young birds; so that it is scarcely possible to walk without treading on them; and the flocks of birds in flight are so prodigious, as to darken the air like clouds; and their noise is such, that you cannot without difficulty hear your next neighbour's voice. If you look down upon the sea from the top of the precipice, you will see it on every side covered with infinite numbers of birds of different kinds, swimming and hunting for their prey: if in failing round the island you survey the hanging cliffs, you may see in every crag or fissure of the broken rocks innumerable birds of various sorts and sizes, more than the stars of heaven when viewed in a serene night: if from afar you see the distant flocks, either Pelicanus, flying to or from the island, you would imagine them to be a vast swarm of bees."

Nor do the rocks of St Kilda seem to be less frequented by these birds; for Martin assures us, that the inhabitants of that small island consume annually no less than 22,600 young birds of this species, besides an amazing quantity of their eggs, these being their principal support throughout the year: they preserve both eggs and fowls in pyramidal stone buildings, covering them with turf-ashes to preserve them from moisture. This is a dear-bought food, earned at the hazard of their lives, either by climbing the most difficult and narrow paths, where (to appearance) they can barely cling, and that too at an amazing height over the raging sea; or else, being lowered down from above, they collect their annual provision, thus hanging in midway air; placing their whole dependance on the uncertain footing of one person, who holds the rope by which they are suspended at the top of the precipice. The young birds are a favourite dish with the North Britons in general: during the season, they are constantly brought from the Bass Isle to Edinburgh, sold at 20d. a-piece, are roasted, and served up a little before dinner as a whet.

The gannets are birds of passage. Their first appearance in those islands is in March; their continuance there till August or September, according as the inhabitants take or leave their first egg; but, in general, the time of breeding, and that of their departure, seems to coincide with the arrival of the herring, and the migration of that fish (which is their principal food) out of those seas. It is probable that these birds attend the herring and pilchard during their whole circuit round the British islands; the appearance of the former being always esteemed by the fishermen as a sure preage of the approach of the latter. It migrates in quest of food as far south as the mouth of the Tagus, being frequently seen off Lisbon during the month of September, plunging for sardine, fish resembling, if not the same with our pilchard.

In the month of August Mr Pennant has observed in Cathness their northern migrations: he has seen them passing the whole day in flocks, from five to fifteen in each: in calm weather they fly high; in storms they fly low and near the shore; but never cross over the land, even when a bay with promontories intervenes, but follow, at an equal distance, the course of the bay, and regularly double every cape. Many of the parties made a sort of halt for the sake of fishing: they soared to a vast height, then darting headlong into the sea, made the water foam and spring up with the violence of their descent; after which they pursued their route. Our author inquired whether they ever were observed to return southward in the spring, but was answered in the negative; so it appears that they annually encircle the whole island.

They are well known on most of the coasts of England, but not by the name of the Solan goose. In Cornwall and in Ireland they are called gannets; by the Welsh, gan. Mr Ray supposed the Cornish gannet to be a species of large gull: a very excusable mistake; for during his six months residence in Cornwall, he never had an opportunity of seeing that bird, except flying; and in the air it has the appearance of Pelicanus, a gull. On that supposition he gave our skua the title of *catacalo*, a name borrowed from Aristotle, and which admirably expresses the rapid descent of this bird on its prey. Mr Moyle first detected this mistake; and the Rev. Dr William Borlase, by presenting us with a fine specimen of this bird, confirms the opinion of Mr Moyle; at the same time giving the following natural history of the bird.

"The gannet comes on the coasts of Cornwall in the latter end of summer, or beginning of autumn; hovering over the shoals of pilchards that come down to us through St George's Channel from the northern seas. The gannet seldom comes near the land, but is constant to its prey, a sure sign to the fishermen that the pilchards are on the coasts; and when the pilchards retire, generally about the end of November, the gannets are seen no more. The bird now sent was killed at Chandour, near Mounts Bay, Sept. 30, 1762, after a long struggle with a water-spaniel, assisted by the boatmen; for it was strong and pugnacious. The person who took it observed that it had a transparent membrane under the eye-lid, with which it covered at pleasure the whole eye, without obscuring the sight or shutting the eye-lid; a gracious provision for the security of the eyes of so weighty a creature, whose method of taking its prey is by darting headlong on it from a height of 150 feet or more into the water. About four years ago, one of these birds flying over Penzance, (a thing that rarely happens), and seeing some pilchards lie on a fir-plank, in a cellar used for curing fish, darted itself down with such violence, that it struck its bill quite through the board, (about an inch and a quarter thick), and broke its neck."

These birds are sometimes taken at sea by a deception of the like kind. The fishermen fasten a pilchard to a board, and leave it floating; which inviting bait decoys the unwary gannet to its own destruction.

In the *Cataracta* of Juba may be found many characters of this bird: he says, that the bill is toothed; that its eyes are fiery; and that its colour is white; and in the very name is expressed its furious descent on its prey. The rest of his accounts favour of fable.

—We are uncertain whether the gannet breeds in any other parts of Europe besides our own islands; except (as Mr Ray inspects, the fula, described in Clusius's Exotics, which breeds in Ferroe Isles) be the same bird.

4. The fula, or booby, is somewhat less than a goose; the basis of the bill yellow, and of bare feathers; the eyes of a light-grey colour; the lower part of the bill of a light brown. The colours of the body are brown and white; but varied so in different individuals, that they cannot be described by them. Their wings are very long; their legs and feet pale yellow, shaped like those of corvoraits. They frequent the Bahama islands, where they breed all months in the year, laying one, two, or three eggs on the bare rock. While young, they are covered with a white down, and continue so till they are almost ready to fly. They feed on fish like the rest of this genus; but have a very troublesome enemy of the man of war bird, which lives on the spoils obtained from other sea-birds, particularly the booby. As soon as this rapacious enemy perceives that the booby has taken a fish, he flies furiously at him, upon which the former Pelicanus, dives to avoid the blow; but as he cannot swallow his prey below water, he is soon obliged to come up again with the fish in his bill as before, when he suffers a new assault; nor does his enemy cease to persecute him till he lets go the fish, which the other immediately carries off.

5. The great booby, by Linnæus called *pelicanis Basilani puffus*, frequents the rivers and sea-coasts of Florida, pursuing and devouring fishes like others of the genus. Mr Catesby informs us, that he has several times found them disabled, and sometimes dead, on the shore; whence he thinks that they meet with sharks or other voracious fishes, which destroy them. The bird is about the size of a goose; the head and neck remarkably prominent; the back of a brown colour; the belly dusky white; the feet black, and shaped like those of a corvoraits; the head elegantly spotted with white; the wings extend six feet when spread. Both this species and the last have a joint in the upper mandible of the bill, by which they can raise it considerably from the lower one without opening the mouth.

6. The oncorotulus, or pelican of Asia, Africa, and America; though Linnæus thinks that the pelican of America may possibly be a distinct variety. This creature, in Africa, is much larger in the body than a swan, and somewhat of the same shape and colour. Its plate four toes are all webbed together; and its neck in some measure resembles that of a swan; but that singularity in which it differs from all other birds is in the bill and the great pouch underneath. This enormous bill is 15 inches from the point to the opening of the mouth, which is a good way back behind the eyes. At the base the bill is somewhat greenish, but varies towards the end, being of a reddish blue. It is very thick in the beginning, but tapers off to the end, where it hooks downwards. The under-chap is still more extraordinary; for to the lower edges of it hang a bag, reaching the whole length of the bill to the neck, which is said to be capable of containing 15 quarts of water. This bag the bird has a power of wrinkling up into the hollow of the under-chap; but by opening the bill, and putting one's hand down into the bag, it may be distended at pleasure. The skin of which it is formed will then be seen of a bluish ash-colour, with many fibres and veins running over its surface. It is not covered with feathers, but a short downy substance as smooth and as soft as latin, and is attached all along the under edges of the chap, to be fixed backward to the neck of the bird by proper ligaments, and reaches near half way down. When this bag is empty it is not seen; but when the bird has fished with success, it is then incredible to what an extent it is often seen dilated. For the first thing the pelican does in fishing is to fill up the bag; and then it returns to digest its burden at leisure. When the bill is opened to its widest extent, a person may run his head into the bird's mouth, and conceal it in this monstrous pouch, thus adapted for very singular purposes. Yet this is nothing to what Ruyfch assures us, who avers that a man has been seen to hide his whole leg, boot and all, in the monstrous jaws of one of these animals. At first appearance this would seem impossible, as the sides of the under chap, from which the bag depends, are not Pelicanus, not above an inch asunder when the bird's bill is first opened; but then they are capable of great separation; and it must necessarily be so, as the bird preys upon large fishes, and hides them by dozens in its pouch. Tertre affirms, that it will hide as many fish as will serve 60 hungry men for a meal.

The pelican was once also known in Europe, particularly in Russia; but it seems to have deserted our coasts. This is the bird of which so many fabulous accounts have been propagated; such as its feeding its young with its own blood, and its carrying a provision of water for them in its great reservoir in the desert. But the absurdity of the first account answers itself; and as for the latter, the pelican uses its bag for very different purposes than that of filling it with water.

Its amazing pouch may be considered as analogous to the crop in other birds; with this difference, that as theirs lies at the bottom of the gullet, so this is placed at the top. Thus, as pigeons and other birds macerate their food for their young in their crops, and then supply them; so the pelican supplies its young by a more ready contrivance, and macerates their food in its bill, or stores it for its own particular sustenance.

The ancients were particularly fond of giving this bird admirable qualities and parental affections: struck, perhaps, with its extraordinary figure, they were willing to supply it with as extraordinary appetites; and having found it with a large reservoir, they were pleased with turning it to the most tender and parental uses. But the truth is, the pelican is a very heavy, sluggish, voracious bird, and very ill fitted to take those flights, or to make those cautious provisions for a distant time, which we have been told they do.

The pelican, says Labat, has strong wings, furnished with thick plumage of an ash-colour, as are the rest of the feathers over the whole body. Its eyes are very small, when compared to the size of its head; there is a sadness in its countenance, and its whole air is melancholy. It is as dull and reluctant in its motions as the flamingo is frightfully and active. It is slow of flight; and when it rises to fly, performs it with difficulty and labour. Nothing, as it would seem, but the spur of necessity could make these birds change their situation, or induce them to ascend into the air: but they must either starve or fly.

They are torpid and inactive to the last degree, so that nothing can exceed their indolence but their gluttony; it is only from the stimulations of hunger that they are excited to labour; for otherwise they would continue always in fixed repose. When they have raised themselves about 30 or 40 feet above the surface of the sea, they turn their head with one eye downwards, and continue to fly in that posture. As soon as they perceive a fish sufficiently near the surface, they dart down upon it with the swiftness of an arrow, seize it with unerring certainty, and store it up in their pouch. They then rise again, though not without great labour, and continue hovering and fishing, with their head on one side as before.

This work they continue with great effort and industry till their bag is full, and then they fly to land to devour and digest at leisure the fruits of their industry. This, however, it would appear, they are not long performing; for towards night they have another hungry call; and they again reluctantly go to labour. At Pelicanus' night, when their fishing is over, and the toil of the day crowned with success, these lazy birds retire a little way from the shore; and, though with the webbed feet and clumsy figure of a goose, they will be contented to perch nowhere but upon trees among the light and airy tenants of the forest. There they take their repose for the night; and often spend a great part of the day, except such times as they are fishing, sitting in dismal solemnity, and, as it would seem, half asleep. Their attitude is with the head resting upon their great bag, and that resting upon their breast. There they remain without motion, or once changing their situation, till the calls of hunger break their repose, and till they find it indispensably necessary to fill their magazine for a fresh meal. Thus their life is spent between sleeping and eating; and our author adds, that they are as foul as they are voracious, as they are every moment voiding excrements in heaps as large as one's fist.

The same indolent habits seem to attend them even in preparing for incubation, and defending their young when excluded. The female makes no preparation for her nest, nor seems to choose any place in preference to lay in; but drops her eggs on the bare ground to the number of five or six, and there continues to hatch them. Attached to the place, without any desire of defending her eggs or her young, she tamely sits and suffers them to be taken from under her. Now and then she just ventures to peck, or to cry out when a person offers to beat her off.

She feeds her young with fish macerated for some time in her bag; and when they cry flies off for a new supply. Labat tells us, that he took two of these when very young, and tied them by the leg to a pole stuck into the ground, where he had the pleasure of feeding the old one for several days come to feed them, remaining with them the greatest part of the day, and spending the night on the branch of a tree that hung over them. By these means they were all three become so familiar, that they suffered themselves to be handled; and the young ones very kindly accepted whatever fish he offered them. These they always put first into their bag, and then swallowed at their leisure.

It seems, however, that they are but disagreeable and useless domestics; their gluttony can scarcely be satisfied; their flesh smells very rancid; and tastes a thousand times worse than it smells. The native Americans kill vast numbers; not to eat, for they are not fit even for the banquet of a savage; but to convert their large bags into purses and tobacco-pouches. They bestow no small pains in dressing the skin with salt and ashes, rubbing it well with oil, and then forming it to their purpose. It thus becomes so soft and pliant, that the Spanish women sometimes adorn it with gold and embroidery to make work-bags of.

Yet, with all the seeming hebetude of this bird, it is not entirely incapable of instruction in a domestic state. Father Raymond assures us, that he has seen one so tame and well educated among the native Americans, that it would go off in the morning at the word of command, and return before night to its master, with its great paunch distended with plunder; a part of which the savages would make it disgorge, and and a part they would permit it to reserve for itself.

"The pelican," as Faber relates, "is not destitute of other qualifications. One of those which was brought alive to the duke of Bavaria's court, where it lived 40 years, seemed to be possessed of very uncommon sensations. It was much delighted in the company and conversation of men, and in music both vocal and instrumental; for it would willingly stand," says he, "by those that sung or sounded the trumpet; and stretching out its head, and turning its ear to the music, listened very attentively to its harmony, though its own voice was little pleasanter than the braying of an ass." Gefner tells us, that the emperor Maximilian had a tame pelican which lived for above 80 years, and that always attended his army on their march. It was one of the largest of the kind, and had a daily allowance by the emperor's orders.

As another proof of the great age to which the pelican lives, Aldrovandus makes mention of one of these birds that was kept several years at Mechlin, and was verily believed to be 50 years old.—We often see these birds at our fairs about town.