| OCR Text |
Show 1869.] MR. D. G. ELLIOT ON THE GENUS PELECANUS. 577 The general form is stout, heavy, and cumbersome, the apparently disproportioned bill and deep pendent gular sac giving to the bird an awkward, rather stupid appearance. The body is long, flattened beneath ; the neck long and thick. Head rather small, oblong, rather flat on the top. The plumage is soft and downy upon the head and neck, excepting the feathers of the crest when this appendage is present ; that of the upper parts is usually lanceolate, rather loose; of the breast and under parts thick and elastic, impervious to water. The bill of the Pelican is of peculiar form, fitted to sustain the pouch which is suspended from it. It is long, rather slender, generally straight, and flattened. The upper mandible is convex at the base, more so in some species than in others, becoming flattened, spreads gradually, and reaches its widest part near the end, when it narrows rapidly and terminates in a nail, or hooked point. The ridge is convex at first and then follows the shape of the mandible, narrowing towards the tip. The nail is curved sharply, concave beneath, with the point acute. The crura of the lower mandible are separated, and only meet at the tip ; to these, filling up the interspace which thus occupies the whole length of the bill, is appended the huge gular pouch, being a huge exaggeration of the membrane usually observed at the base of the under mandible in other species of birds. At the base, and extending for about one-half of the length of the bill, the lower mandible is wider than the upper, but contracts and fits into the upper mandible for the remainder of its length. Upon the ridge of the upper mandible, in one species, a bony crest is present in the males during the breeding-season, but does not remain after that period. The pouch is formed of skin, which is thin, filled with small blood-vessels, semitransparent, and capable of great distention. It extends iu a greater or less degree down the throat, reaching its greatest development in P. molinee. The nostrils, although visible and open in the young, are hidden in the adults, in a groove which runs along the side of the ridge on the upper mandible. The bill is covered with an irregular, rough, somewhat scaly skin. The wings are long, when folded reaching to about half the length of the tail; the second and third primaries usually the longest ; the secondaries are incurved, long-sometimes, when the wing is closed, extending beyond the primaries. The feathers of the coverts are long and narrow, in some species lanceolate. The tail is rather short, broad, and rounded, composed, in the different species, of various numbers of feathers, which are pointed. The coverts are long, both upper and under covering two thirds of the length of the tail. Thighs usually within the body ; the tarsus rather short, in some species being two-thirds the length of the middle toe without the claw, in others about equal to it. It is covered with hexagonally shaped scutellae, largest anteriorly. Feet rather small; toes on an equal plane, all connected by a web. Claws short, stout, curved, acute, concave beneath. |
