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Pelican   /pˈɛləkən/   Listen
Pelican

noun
(Written also pelecan)
1.
Large long-winged warm-water seabird having a large bill with a distensible pouch for fish.



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"Pelican" Quotes from Famous Books



... saw I the brightened splendor come to the two who were turning in a wheel, such as was befitting to their ardent love. It set itself there into the song and into the measure, and my Lady kept her gaze upon them, even as a bride, silent and motionless. "This is he who lay upon the breast of our Pelican,[3] and from upon the cross this one was chosen to the great office."[4] Thus my Lady, nor yet moved she her look from its fixed attention after than before these words of hers. As is he who gazes ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... killed by laughing thrushes,—which simply love to do murder! A nightingale was killed by a catbird and two mocking- birds. Two snake-birds killed a third one—all of them thoroughly depraved villains. Three gulls murdered another; a brown pelican was killed by trumpeter-swans; and a Canada goose was killed by a gull. All these victims were birds ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... Bristol and Bath stage-coaches took two days for the trip to London. Madge doubtless would have slept a night or two at Bristol after her landing; and probably at the Pelican Inn at Speenhamland (opposite Newbury), the usual midway sleeping-place, at the end of the first day's ride. But bad weather may have hindered the journey, and required the passengers to pass more than one night as ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... the right foot resides the melancholy sweetness of the turtle-doves; in the wound of the left hand the dove ensconces herself, the symbol of surrender, and in the cavity of the right hand reposes the pelican, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... The Desmoines, he adds, is about eighty yards wide where the Little Sioux river approaches it: it is shoaly, and one of its principal branches is called Cat river. Two miles beyond this river is a long island which we called Pelican island, from the numbers of that animal which were feeding on it: one of these being killed, we poured into his bag five gallons of water. An elk, too, was shot, and we had again to remark that snakes are rare in this part of the Missouri. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... She indignantly gathered the reins more tightly in her hand, pushed back her bonnet, which now hung down over her eyes like the bill of a pelican, and applied her little switch of wild cherry to the horse's flank with such vehemence that a fly which was about to alight on that spot went to the other side. The old horse himself—he bore the peaceable name of William Penn—merely ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... and movement on the pier, a corresponding stir and movement on board the trim craft, a swishing of great ropes, and a tooting of whistles. White foam churned astern of her. A comic-supplement-looking pelican on a buoy off to port flapped her a fantastic farewell. The blockade-defying yacht Polly was off for blue waters and the freedom of ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... by the transfusion of blood from vigorous frames. Jesus Christ passes His own blood into our veins and makes us immortal. The Church chose for one of its ancient emblems of the Saviour the pelican, which fed its young, according to the fable, with blood from its own breast. So Christ vitalises us. He in us is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... will be much the same, whatever the figure of the outline of the superficies may be, and a circle perhaps affords the best resistance of any. Take, for example, a circle of twenty square feet (as possessed by the pelican) loaded with as many pounds. This, as just stated, will limit the rate of perpendicular descent to 1,320 feet per minute. But instead of a circle sixty-one inches in diameter, if the area is bounded by a parallelogram ten feet long by two feet broad, and ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... Espana, are brought from Japon, whose song is most sweet. There are many turtle-doves, ring-doves; other doves with an extremely green plumage, and red feet and beaks; and others that are white with a red spot on the breast, like a pelican. Instead of quail, there are certain birds resembling them, but smaller, which are called povos [253] and other smaller birds called mayuelas. [254] There are many wild chickens and cocks, which are very small, and taste like partridge. There ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... raise itself into the air. M. Mouillard, of Cairo, spent more than thirty years in watching the flight of soaring birds, and devoted the whole of his book, L'Empire de l'Air (1881), to the investigation of soaring flight. The pelican, the turkey-buzzard, the vulture, the condor, have all had their students and disciples. M. Mouillard, indeed, maintains that if there be a moderate wind, a bird can remain a whole day soaring in the air, with no expenditure of power whatever. To those who have watched seagulls ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... grape-vine. The next one to the right contains the X P, with sheaves of wheat. Beginning with the panel next to the right of this, the several ones are filled as follows:—the Greek cross with the thistle; next, the pelican with the rose of Sharon; next, the emblem of the Holy Trinity with the clover-leaf; next, the emblem of the Holy Ghost with olive branches; next, the crown of glory with palm branches. The Paten is enriched with a golden medallion on ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... rather enjoyed the shower bath. I was always devising means of making life more tolerable, and amongst other things I made a sort of swing, which I found extremely useful in beguiling time. I would also practise jumping with long poles. One day I captured a young pelican, and trained him to accompany me in my walks and assist me in my fishing operations. He also acted as a decoy. Frequently I would hide myself in some grass, whilst my pet bird walked a few yards away to attract his fellows. Presently he would be joined ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... out of it that I can see, though. I'll give you work to do to pay for your keep, and I'm afraid that's the best we can do unless," continued the factor, thoughtfully "unless you go with the mail. I find I've got to send some letters to Fort Pelican. How far is that from ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... should study the insect because we are his inferiors. The old moralists merely took the virtues of man and distributed them quite decoratively and arbitrarily among the animals. The ant was an almost heraldic symbol of industry, as the lion was of courage, or, for the matter of that, the pelican of charity. But if the mediaevals had been convinced that a lion was not courageous, they would have dropped the lion and kept the courage; if the pelican is not charitable, they would say, so much ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... Paskwaya Indians, which consisted of thirty families, who were lodged in tents of a circular form, composed of dressed bison skins stretched upon poles twelve feet in length. On their arrival the chief of this village, named Chatik, which name meant Pelican,[13] called the party rather imperiously into his lodge or meeting house, and then told them very plainly that his armed men exceeded theirs in number, and that he would put the whole of the party to death unless they were very liberal in their presents. To avoid ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... Charnock says it was "an attempt in its nature so bold and unprecedented, that we should scarcely know whether to applaud it as a brave, or condemn it as a rash one, but for its success." The squadron with which he sailed for South America consisted of five vessels, the largest of which, the Pelican, was only of 100 tons burthen; the next, the Elizabeth, was of 80; the third, the Swan, a fly-boat, was of 50; the Marygold bark, of 30; and the Christopher, a pinnace, of 15 tons. The united crews of these vessels amounted to only ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... from the Pelican Classics edition of Leviathan, which in turn was prepared from the first edition. I have tried to follow as closely as possible the original, and to give the flavour of the text that Hobbes himself proof-read, but the following differences ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... which is the main entrance to the building, is paved with white marble. In the center of the floor the Stewart arms are enameled in brass, showing a shield with a white and blue check, supported by the figures of a wild Briton and a lion. The crest is a pelican feeding its young, and the motto is "Prudentia et Constantia." These heraldic figures are made a special feature of the main aisle. Directly in the center of the auditorium floor the Stewart and Clinch arms are impaled, enameled in brass. On the floor in the choir the Hilton arms ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... yes! The pelican in piety—the torn breast! The I and F. Ah! blood enough shed, blood enough. Go quickly, Sir Prosper, and testify for your name; 'tis of good omen and better report. And have you killed that sick wolf Galors, Messire? ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... and there opened glades, shadowed even during noon by thin groves of towering trees. At our approach fled in terror flocks of green pigeons, jays, ibis, turtledoves, golden pheasants, quails and moorhens, with crows and hawks, while now and then a solitary pelican winged its way ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... what some of them saw while they were members of the State militia," answered his father. "They helped capture the United States arsenal at Baton Rouge and hoist the Pelican flag over it, and you would have thought by the way they acted that they had done something grand. But the work was accomplished without the firing of a shot, the major in command offering to surrender if a force of six or eight hundred men was brought against him. By the way," added Mr. ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... "Pelican in the wilderness. That's it, Win; and you're about right. Love won't make the pot boil; but money can't buy everything, and I reckon there's a screw loose somewhere in ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... unbroken mirror, except where its glass—like surface was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable's length you could not distinguish the water—line, nor tell where the substance ended and shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... I did. But what between the poor men I won't have, and the rich men who won't have me, I stand as a pelican in the wilderness!" ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... genders a novel sense, At which we start and fret; till in the end, 810 Melting into its radiance, we blend, Mingle, and so become a part of it,— Nor with aught else can our souls interknit So wingedly: when we combine therewith, Life's self is nourish'd by its proper pith, And we are nurtured like a pelican brood. Aye, so delicious is the unsating food, That men, who might have tower'd in the van Of all the congregated world, to fan And winnow from the coming step of time 820 All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime Left by men-slugs and human serpentry, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... extreme beauty of the scene much affected me. I had endured much toil, both in hunting and rowing; sometimes being in danger from the grizzly bears, and, at others, with difficulty escaping the war-parties of the Indians. My rifle had been busy, and the swan and the pelican, the antelope and the elk, had supplied me with food; and as I sat on a grave, in that beautiful bluff in the wilderness—the enamelled prairie, the thousand grassy hills that were visible, with their golden heads ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... lordly Eagle a few other Birds are associated in early Heraldry: and, after a while, others join them, including the Falcon, Ostrich, Swan, Peacock or Pawne, and the Pelican borne both as a symbol of sacred significance, and also by the PELHAMS from being allusive to their name. Cocks, with the same allusive motive, were borne by COCKAYNE: Parrots, blazoned as "Popinjays," appear as early as HENRYIII.: and in a Roll of EDWARDII., ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... bold lofty banks. I remarked the salt-bush of the Bogan plains, growing here, on sand-islands of this river. The grass surpassed any I had ever seen in the colony in quality and abundance. The slow flying pelican appeared over our heads, and we came to a long broad reach covered with ducks, where the channel had all the appearance of a river of the first magnitude. The old mussle shells (UNIO) lay in heaps, like cart-loads, all along the banks, but still ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... and the nightingale mode The English tin, the cinnamon mode, Fresh pomegranates, green linden-bloom mode; The lonely gormandizer mode, The skylark, the snail, the barking tone; And the honey flower, the marjoram mode; The lion's skin, true pelican mode, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... reenforcement[obs3]; commissariat. provender &c. (food) 298; ensilage; viaticum. caterer, purveyor, commissary, quartermaster, manciple[obs3], feeder, batman, victualer, grocer, comprador[Sp], restaurateur; jackal, pelican; sutler &c. (merchant) 797[obs3]. grocery shop [U. S.], grocery store. V. provide; make provision, make due provision for; lay in, lay in a stock, lay in a store. supply, suppeditate|; furnish; find, find one in; arm. cater, victual, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Anne, your wife, who is in sore affliction and deep grief by reason of your transgressions. But, beloved lamb of my flock, I should be unworthy my high and sacred calling did I not lift up also my rebuking voice as a pelican in the wilderness, and adjure you to beware of concupiscence and fleshly lust, which unceasingly do war upon the human soul. Thinkest thou to touch ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head

... are in shallow water; from this they sweep them with a sort of dredge of branches, which they drag through the pools on to the banks; the water runs back through the sticks, leaving the fish high and dry on the sand. The pelican is considered a great delicacy amongst the natives, and every day deputations waited upon us, asking us to shoot the "Coyas" for them, which of course we were very glad to do. They did not repay our kindness very nicely, for they tried to inveigle Warri into their ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... very small, The humming-bee is less; The ladybird is least of all, And beautiful in dress. The pelican she loves her young, The stork its parent loves; The woodcock's bill is very long, And innocent are doves. In Germany they hunt the boar, The bee brings honey home, The ant lays up a winter store, ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman

... whose dear spires, Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon, It was reward enough for me to view Once more; but not for any knot of men, Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat! But would you know why I have done all this? 440 Ask of the bleeding pelican why she Hath ripped her bosom? Had the bird a voice, She'd tell thee 'twas for all her ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... in proportion to its length, and is said to seat 2,000 people easily. The reredos, a handsome piece of wood carving with a central group of the pelican in her piety, typical of Christ giving His life's blood for fainting souls, is the work of Grinling Gibbons. The organ, in the western gallery, is supposed to have been the work of Bernard Schmidt and was built for the ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... get in another pay day before I start the high an' mighty, Bart. But I'll speak to the old man about them eggs. They taste like they'd been laid by a pelican before the Civil War. Somehow I can't eat an egg that's the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... immersed, passed some distance from Tor, situated at the end of the bay, the waters of which seemed tinted with red, an observation already made by Captain Nemo. Then night fell in the midst of a heavy silence, sometimes broken by the cries of the pelican and other night-birds, and the noise of the waves breaking upon the shore, chafing against the rocks, or the panting of some far-off steamer beating the waters of the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... of doctor, Shawn, the magic-healers, the sort as cures by the layin' on of hands and rubbin'. Pelican Smith was one of this sort. He practiced up on the Kentucky river and made a sort of circuit down in our country. Sometimes thar would come a report of somebody gittin' well, but when anybody died, Pelican always said, 'The Lord loved him best.' You never knowed Pelican. He was ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis

... said Percivale: 'One night my pathway swerving east, I saw The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors All in the middle of the rising moon: And toward him spurred, and hailed him, and he me, And each made joy of either; then he asked, "Where is he? hast thou seen him—Lancelot?—Once," Said good Sir Bors, "he dashed across me—mad, And ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... of the so-called mother country, a phrase surely of sardonic impressiveness. Such, however, was the common feeling of that day in England. It was so with regard to India; it was so with regard to Ireland. The story of the pelican was reversed. The pelican did not in this case feed her young with her blood; the young were expected to give their ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... figure, ungirt, is of a deep red, as well as the mantle, which last is fastened over the breast by a rich clasp, and, falling down equally from both shoulders, is thrown in beautiful folds over the feet. Behind the figure, and as high as the head, is a hanging of green tapestry adorned with a golden pelican (a well-known symbol of the Redeemer); behind the head the ground is gold, and on it, in a semicircle, are three inscriptions, which again describe the Trinity, as all-mighty, all-good, and all-bountiful. The two other figures ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... memory, so clear and vivid about earlier solitary times, now in all this society becomes blurred and vague. I recollect certain pleasures; being taken, for instance, to a menagerie, and having a practical joke, in the worst taste, played upon me by the pelican. One of my cousins, who was a medical student, showed me a pistol, and helped me to fire it; he smoked a pipe, and I was oddly conscious that both the firearm and the tobacco were definitely hostile to my 'dedication'. ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... me; it is full of consolation; but all is in prospect. I look at God, what he is in himself, what he is to his people now and what he will be to eternity: the consolations of hope are mine; but for the present, I feel like the sparrow on the house-top, or like a pelican in the wilderness; and when I think on my years and the robustness of my constitution, and that I may have a long journey before me, I am not able to look at it. At the same time, when I consider my children, who, having lost their pastor, who bore them ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... starting out with a frigate and starting home with a fleet, all taken by himself during a cruise unsurpassed for skill, daring and success, Master-Commandant William Henry Allen, of the American brig Argus, lost his life and his vessel in battle with the British brig Pelican. The defeat of the Argus is believed to have been caused by the use of defective powder, which had been taken from on board a prize, and which did not give the cannon shot force enough to do serious damage to the enemy. Allen's ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... a single iceberg is to be seen on this fantastic sea. Innumerable flocks of birds skim its surface, among them is a pelican which is shot. On a floating piece of ice is a bear of the Arctic species and of gigantic size. At last land is signalled. It is an island of a league in circumference, to which the name of Bennet Islet was given, ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the pelican nourishes her young with her own blood, that serpents lay aside their venom before drinking, that the salamander quenches fire, that the hyena can talk with shepherds, that certain birds are born of the fruit of a certain tree when it happens to fall into the water, with other masses ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... too, are strange. Kangaroo and wallaby are as fond of grass as the sheep, and after a pelican's yawn there are few things funnier to witness than the career of an 'old man' kangaroo, with his harem after him, when the approach of a buggy disturbs the family at their afternoon meal. Away they ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... Massachusetts Cavalry. The room had the picturesqueness which comes everywhere from the natural grouping of articles of daily use,—swords, belts, pistols, rifles, field-glasses, spurs, canteens, gauntlets,—while wreaths of gray moss above the windows, and a pelican's wing three feet long over the high mantel-piece, indicated more deliberate decoration. This, and the whole atmosphere of the place, spoke of the refining presence of agreeable women; and it was pleasant when they held their little court in the evening, and pleasant all day, with the different ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... was, getting into a birch-bark canoe, with or without a comrade, and going forth on the lakes and rivers of the wilderness with plenty of powder and shot, to visit the native home of the wild-goose, the wild-duck, the pelican, the plover, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... and unfolded a ten-piastre note. I took no notice. He shook it for me to see, and I awoke like a pelican at the ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... power for both his son and his niece. He thoroughly understood that it was his duty as a father and a guardian to start them well in the world, to do all that he could for their prosperity, to feed their wants with his money, as a pelican feeds her young with blood from her bosom. Had he known the hearts of each of them, could he have understood Marie's constancy, or the obstinate silent strength of his son's disposition, he would have let Adrian Urmand, with his business and his house at Basle, seek a wife in any other quarter ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... imprisoned twice for publishing articles decided to be seditious. His principal poetical works are "The World before the Flood," "Greenland," "The West Indies," "The Wanderer in Switzerland," "The Pelican Island," and "Original Hymns, for Public, Private, and Social Devotion." Mr. Montgomery's style is generally too diffuse; but its smoothness and the evident sincerity of his emotions have made many of his hymns and minor poems ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the symbolism is based upon quite erroneous notions concerning natural history, and is so far fantastic, it is not devoid of charm. The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a case in point. Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, the pelican thrusts its bill into its breast (whence the red colour of the bill) and feeds its young with its life-blood. ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... heroes, the birds, to the sons of heroes, to the porphyrion, the pelican, the spoon-bill, the redbreast, the grouse, the peacock, the horned-owl, the teal, the bittern, the heron, the stormy petrel, the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... kindred, of men believing themselves to be related by the ties of blood and common descent. That descent the groups agree in tracing, not from some real or idealised human parent, but from some animal, plant, or other natural object, as the kangaroo, the emu, the iguana, the pelican, and so forth. Persons of the pelican stock in the north of Queensland regard themselves as relations of people of the same stock in the most southern parts of Australia. The creature from which each tribe claims descent ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... into pools and shallows, such as here, no less than on Earth, form the favourite haunts or spawning places of the fish. In some of the lesser pools birds larger than the stork, bearing under the throat an expansible bag like that of the pelican, were seeking for prey. They were watched and directed by a master on the shore, and carried to a square tank, fixed on a wheeled frame not unlike that of the ordinary carriage, which accompanied him, each fish they took. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... Confederate, a sorely anxious father, with grave and distant civility, as an avowed and doubtless unregenerate enemy of that sacred flag; but, as has been said, that was before it was pointed out to him that this was the Honorable M. C. from the Pelican State, now prominent as a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs. Motherless and sister-less was the wounded boy, yet gentle and almost caressing hands had blessed his pillow and helped to drive fever and delirium to the winds. It was twelve days after they ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... state of insensibility was passing away, and they were now in a gentle doze, and sleeping, thinking of the company they were to entertain. For these Cormorants had come to this spot to meet their cousin the Pelican to consult with him on some family matters. Upon their first arrival at the place they had set to work to get together a good supply of fish, for this is the only food of both the Cormorant and the Pelican. In a short time they landed a great number, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... tired and decidedly hungry, the main focus of the village was a long iron post which stretched out over the street and supported a rudely-painted sign of a bird, whose species might have been a puzzle to an ornithologist but for the words "Pelican Inn" that ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... within four days! To the merry bridal pair, what hast thou to say, old scullion?' And they continue to taunt him cruelly. The outraged peasant holds his peace. 'With his blear eyes, his white pate, his limping leg, whither comes he trudging? Pelican, bird of ill omen, go to thy hole and hide thy sorry face.' The stranger swallows their insults, and casts toward ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... "booby" follows Cuvier's note to the French translation. The "booby" is the "booby gannet." The Spanish dictionaries give pelican as the meaning of Alcatraz. The gannets and the pelicans were formerly classed together. The word Alcatraz was taken over into English and corrupted to Albatros. Alfred Newton, Dictionary of Birds ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... late? No? Fancy, Princess—that great booby, Izzet Bey, must stop me at the club, and I exceedingly pressed to dress and entirely out of humour with all Turks. 'Eh bien, mon vieux!' said he in his mincing manner of a nervous pelican, 'they're warming up the Balkan boilers with Austrian pine. But I hear they're full of snow.' And I said to him: 'Snow boils very nicely if the fire is sufficiently persistent!' And I think Izzet Bey will find it so!"—with a quick laugh ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... 7 A. M., we rode away over little prairies and across low pine-clad hills, and saw to right and left tiny parks with their forest boundaries, until, after two miles, we came to Pelican Creek, a broad grayish stream, having, notwithstanding its swift current, a look of being meant by Nature for stagnation. As we followed this unwholesome-looking water eastward we crossed some quaking, ill-smelling morasses, and at last rode ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... while, then Crow would knock him off and sit on it himself. Thus they sat on the top of the pole above the water for many ages. At last they created the birds which prey on fish. They created Kingfisher, Eagle, Pelican, and others. They created also Duck. Duck was very small but she dived to the bottom of the water, took a beakful of mud, and then died in coming to the top of the water. Duck lay dead floating on the water. Then Hawk and Crow took ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... as the western arch of the present Lady Chapel. The central gable of the old termination, rather acute in form, is richly decorated with panels and crocketting, and is crowned by a tabernacle wherein Bishop Fox is represented leaning on the pelican. "Three of the panels in the centre are pierced and glazed, forming a small square-headed window; and under it is a door opening upon an alura, behind a crenelated, panelled, and pierced parapet, over a cornice with bosses, at the base of the gable, and just above the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... right of the altar were painted by Ludovico Brea, acontemporary of Raphael, and the only artist of eminence Nice has produced. The cemetery contains some beautiful tombstones. In the centre of the "Place," on a spiral marble column, is a crucifix with a winged J.C. Above is a pelican feeding its young, afavourite Christian symbol of charity ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... 26th of Jury, 1721, at such a sessions, Walter Kennedy and John Bradshaw were tried for piracies committed on the high seas, and both of them convicted. This Walter Kennedy was born at a place called Pelican Stairs in Wapping. His father was an anchor-smith, a man of good reputation, who gave his son Walter the best education he was able; and while a lad he was very tractable, and had no other apparent ill quality than that of a too aspiring ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... the dead of years were washed from their graves and carried across to the mainland. A tramp steamer was carried over to Virginia Point, then sent like a shot through three bridges. The steamers "Alamo" and "Red Cross" were dropped upon Pelican Flats, and when the waves retreated were left high and dry upon the sand. Yachts and sailboats were driven over the mainland and could be seen in the grass far beyond Texas City. Railroad cars loaded and ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... Hunt Wild Cat. Opossum. Skunk Alligator. Rattle Snake. Green Snake Pelican. Wood Stock Flying Squirrel. Roseate Spoonbill. Snowy Heron White Ibis. Tobacco Worm. Cock Roach Cat Fish. Gar Fish. Spoonbill Catfish Indian Buffalo Hunt on Foot Dance of the Natchez Indians Burial of ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... painfully evolving "Tom Jones" from an inner consciousness that might have been improved by soap and any water but that of Bath. Bishop Warburton had just shot the Count Du Barre in a duel with Lord Chesterfield; and Beau Nash was disputing with Dr. Johnson, at the Pelican Inn, Walcot, upon a question of lexicographical etiquette. It is necessary to learn these things in order the better to appreciate the interest ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... rowed by two negroes, with the revenue flag flying, came alongside, and a stout man of middle age came on board. Morris came forward: "Mr. Allen, the collector, I suppose? I am master and owner of this yacht, the Pelican of New York, a pleasure-vessel on a cruise. The other schooner is also a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... men on the first boat killed a cow moose and two calves. No game laws north of 53 deg. Men rejoice over meat. Eight mission scows in fleet, which carry eight to ten tons each. Father Le Fevre says, except for whitefish, all northern missions would perish. At 2.15 stopped at Pelican Portage, at head of Pelican Rapids, 120 miles below the landing. Head winds yesterday, but favorable now. Two boats collided, and one damaged. Saw two dogs carrying packs—first pack-dogs I ever saw. Priest baptized an Indian baby here. I ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... company invited to the ceremony witnessed the movements and heard the cries of a number of mechanical animals, monkeys, wolves and boars, while a whale 60 feet long moved around the hall together with elephants, amid thirty large trees, a fountain of crystal and a pelican "spouting hippocras from his beak." The fact is that the situation in the Netherlands, in the second half of the fifteenth century, was very much the same as that in Florence at the same time, the people being swayed between an exuberant enjoyment of life and a severe asceticism. ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes: And like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician,[4] [Sidenote: life-rendring Pelican,] Repast them with ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... Verd Islands to the coast of Brazil you see several different kinds of gulls, which, probably, are bred in the Island of St. Paul. Sometimes the large bird called the frigate pelican soars majestically over the vessel, and the tropic bird comes near enough to let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail. On the line, when it is calm, sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance. They are descried from the ship ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... before the luncheon interval. The jury left the box for good, and Soames went out to get something to eat. He met James standing at the little luncheon-bar, like a pelican in the wilderness of the galleries, bent over a sandwich with a glass of sherry before him. The spacious emptiness of the great central hall, over which father and son brooded as they stood together, was marred now and then for a fleeting moment by barristers in wig and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... advantage of permanent wear, the two friends, Tom and Bob, recollected having seen, in their rambles through the metropolis, many specimens of the perfection of this ingenious art, particularly at Carlton-House, the Pelican Office, Lombard-street, and almost all the public halls. The statues of the four 229quarters of the world, and others at the Bank, at the Admiralty, Trinity House, Tower-hill, Somerset-place, the Theatres; and almost every street presents objects, (some of 20 ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... of New Orleans, and found business going along as usual. Ships were strung for miles along the lower levee, and steamboats above, all discharging or receiving cargo. The Pelican flag of Louisiana was flying over the Custom House, Mint, City Hall, and everywhere. At the levee ships carried every flag on earth except that of the United States, and I was told that during a procession on the 22d of February, celebrating ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... dragged screaming-awake, never formulated a scheme for the restoration of Southern Mesopotamia to its productive pre-eminence, and never so much as contemplated it, except as an object that would be possible of realisation after the Empire of India had fallen over-ripe into her pelican mouth. Therein she was perfectly right—she usually is right in these dreams of empire in so far as they are empirical—for she seems dimly to have conjectured in these methodical visions, that India was the key to unlock Southern Mesopotamia. But nowhere can I ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... 435 In under-coverts, yet the countenance Of the whole place should bear a stamp of awe; A habitation sober and demure For ruminating creatures; a domain For quiet things to wander in; a haunt 440 In which the heron should delight to feed By the shy rivers, and the pelican Upon the cypress spire in lonely thought Might sit and sun himself.—Alas! Alas! In vain for such solemnity I looked; 445 Mine eyes were crossed by butterflies, ears vexed By chattering popinjays; the inner heart Seemed trivial, and the impresses without Of a too gaudy region. Different ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Woman," by Albert Weinert, repeated alternately above corridors around court. Man, a hunter, feeding pelican. Woman, the child-bearer. ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... Pelican.—"Full of living, breathing, human interest. Few writers possess the gift of bringing actual existence to their characters as does Mr Scott, and in the pages of his newest book you shall find tears and smiles, and all the emotions ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... grass-tree; the larvae of insects; white ants; eggs of birds; turtles or lizards; many kinds of kangaroo; opossums; squirrels, sloths, and wallabies; ducks; geese; teal; cockatoos; parrots; wild dogs and wombats; the native companion; the wild turkey; the swan; the pelican; the leipoa, and an endless variety of water-fowl, and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... alone in a corn field south of Pelican Pouch, a glacial moraine south of Carlyle about six miles. It is the plumpest, thinnest shelled nut of northern variety, and above average size. Fair bearer to the best of my knowledge, but a severe hail storm and a season of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... Bud soothingly, for the boy was very nervous from being up all night and his hard ride, which would have taxed the energies of a grown man. "Don't yer mind what thet ole pelican says. He ain't got no more sense than a ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... the female relatives of his bride's family by the products of his skill and industry in hunting and fishing for a year. He is the general protector of the girl's family, and especially of the girl, whose bower and pelican-skin couch he shares, "not as husband, but as continent companion," for a year. If all goes well, he is then permanently received as "consort-guest," and his children are added to the clan of his mother-in-law.[99] With few exceptions, descent was formerly reckoned ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... animals. The ground was so low that we could not get high enough to see across the river, on account of the willows; but we were evidently in the vicinity of the lake, and the water-fowl made this morning a noise like thunder. A pelican (pelecanus onocrotalus) was killed as he passed by, and many geese and ducks flew over the camp. On the dry salt marsh here is scarce any other plant than ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... or pined 'Cause I see a woman kind? Or a well-disposed nature Joined with a lovely creature? Be she meeker, kinder than Turtle-dove or pelican: If she be not so to me, What care ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... is known that stags renew their age by eating serpents; so the phoenix is restored by the nest of spices she makes to burn in. The pelican hath the same virtue, whose right foot, if it be put under hot dung, after three months a pelican will be bred from it. Wherefore some physicians, with some confections made of a viper and hellebore, and of some of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various

... of the desert" was Aunt Mary's favorite simile. In vain had Margaret explained that the pelican was a ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... with great truthfulness and picturesque feeling. Among his best pictures are 'The Floating Feather,' a feather given with singular lightness drifting in a pool, with different birds on the water and the shore—a pelican prominent—in Amsterdam Museum, and 'A Hen defending her Chickens against the attacks of a Pea-hen, with a Peacock, a Pigeon, a Cassowary, and ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... of Egypt, and dwelleth in deserts beside the river Nile. All that the pelican eateth, he plungeth in water with his foot, and when he hath so plunged it in water, he putteth it into his mouth with his own foot, as it were with an hand. Only the pelican and the popinjay among fowls use the foot instead of ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... became visible, I returned to the camp. At the point where it turned, a dyke of basalt traverses the river. The country still maintained its favourable character, and the river contained fine sheets of water similar to those already described, on one of which a pelican floated undisturbed by our presence. Large heaps of muscle-shells, which have given food to successive generations of the natives, cover the steep sloping banks of the river, and indicate that this part of the country is very populous. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... tear stood in each of the warden's eyes as he looked round upon his married daughter. Why should one sister who was so rich predict poverty for another? Some such idea as this was on his mind, but he gave no utterance to it. Then he thought of the pelican feeding its young with blood from its own breast, but he gave no utterance to that either; and then of Eleanor waiting for him at home, waiting to congratulate him on the end of all ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... like a pelican in the wilderness, Olaf," the owner of these vanities complained. "Are you very busy? Cousin Agatha is about her housekeeping, and I have read the afternoon paper all through,—even the list of undelivered letters ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... pelican mentioned by Mr. Osbeck, one of Linnaeus's travelling pupils (the pelicanus aquilus), whose food is fish; and which it takes from other birds, because it is not formed to catch them itself; hence it is called by the English a Man-of-war-bird, Voyage ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... the hills," gains courage enough to answer thus: "Hope is the certain expectation of future glory, which is the effect of grace divine and merit precedent." St. James is so pleased with this answer that he glows even more brightly, as St. John, "who lay upon the breast of him, our Pelican," appeared, shining so brightly that Dante, turning to ask Beatrice who he is, discovers he can no longer see her although she ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... two, if they'd a lived—twins they were, too. After raisin' them for six years, it was hard—year of the frozen wheat, too—oh, yes, 'tain't all easy. Now, there's old Bruce Simpson, back there at Pelican Lake. It would just do you good to be there of a mornin.' He has four boys and four girls, and just at the clip of five o'clock them lads jump out of bed—the eight feet hit the floor at the same minute and come leppin' down the stairs four abreast, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... one time used as a sleeping-room by travelling monks, and, like the nave, with a battlement along the top, an old inscription over the porch, "Ry du," having been interpreted as meaning "Give to God." The carving over the doorway represented a pelican feeding its young with blood from its own breast, and a sundial bore the very ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... passed on the second day was somewhat varied. They emerged early in the day upon the bosom of a large lake which looked almost like the ocean. Here there were immense flocks of water-fowl, and among them that strange, ungainly bird, the pelican. Here, too, there were actually hundreds of crocodiles. The lake was full of little mud islands, and on all of them these hideous and gigantic reptiles were seen basking lazily in ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... great capabilities of Ceylon for the cultivation of this all-important "staff of life" are entirely neglected by the government. The tanks which afforded a supply of water for millions in former ages now lie idle and out of repair; the pelican sails in solitude upon their waters, and the crocodile basks upon their shores; the thousands of acres which formerly produced rice for a dense population are now matted over by a thorny and impenetrable jungle. The wild buffalo, descendant from the ancient stock which tilled the ground of ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... commence until eleven o'clock at night, because an awful lot of the Universal Sporters are actors and they cannot get away before that time at earliest. Now, there are two entrances for the members into the club, one in Pelican Street and the other in Ridge Street. Raffles must enter by one or the other, and there must be some one at each doorway to give him my note. I can take the one, and the question is—who will take ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... Lynx), of Pelican Lake, requested another trader to be sent to that place. Complains of the high prices of goods, the scarcity of animals, and the great poverty to which they are reduced. Says the traders are very rigorous in their dealings; that they take their furs from their lodges without ceremony, and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... is used for the affection of parents to children; which was also visibly represented by the Stork or Pelican feeding her young with blood taken from her own wounded bosom. A number of Pelicans form a semicircle in shallow parts of the sea near the coast, standing on their long legs; and thus including a shoal of small fish, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... hand thrust forth to bear the lanthorn which threw a golden bar of light along her master's path. Behind them a group of swaggering, half-drunken Yorkshire dalesmen, speaking a dialect which their own southland countrymen could scarce comprehend, their jerkins marked with the pelican, which showed that they had come over in the train of the north-country Stapletons. The burgher glanced back at their fierce faces and quickened his step, while the girl pulled her whimple closer round her, for there was a meaning in their wild eyes, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... so in this case; and being known all over the district as a skilful miner, his specialty being timber-work, he very soon got a good job on the Pelican as boss timberman on a section of that ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... Duerer, which goes as far as art yet has reached in delineation of plumage; while for the simple action of the pinion it is impossible to go beyond what has been done already by Titian and Tintoret; but you cannot so much as once look at the rufflings of the plumes of a pelican pluming itself after it has been in the water, or carefully draw the contours of the wing either of a vulture or a common swift, or paint the rose and vermilion on that of a flamingo, without receiving almost a new ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... in bringing down a great pelican that, with some others, had been gorging itself with gold-eyes, a beautiful kind of fish, similar in appearance to large herring, but with eyes so bright and golden that the appropriateness of the name is at once evident to all the first time they see it. Frank carried to the ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... chapel when it was furnished; as was all that Mr. Buxton possessed. There was a wonderful golden crucifix by an unknown artist, that he had picked up in his travels, that stood upon the altar, with the bird-types of the Saviour at each of the four ends; a pelican at the top, an eagle on the right supporting its young which were raising their wings for a flight, on the left a phoenix amid flames, and at the foot a hen gathering her chickens under her wings—all the birds had tiny emerald eyes; the figure on the cross was beautifully wrought, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... this time was to shoot a pelican, to have him properly prepared, and to take him to Rudder Grange, where, suitably set up, with his wings spread out, full seven feet from tip to tip, he would be a grand trophy and reminder of these Indian River days. This was the reason ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... my friend, thou who wouldst have fed thy young ones, like the pelican, with blood from thine own breast, had such feeding been of avail; thou who art the kindest of mothers; has it been well for thee to subject to such perils this poor weak young dove ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... at the town-residence of the one Bishop of the Establishment who had lent a favorable ear to the Prime Minister's proposals. Boycotted by his brother Bishops this solitary pelican in piety was still on terms of official acquaintance with his titular head. Placing his well-stored nest at the disposal of the two combatants, he retired for a discreet week-end into the wilderness; and the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, after announcing in the press that they also ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... inspecting the bund of a large tank at Nade-cadua, which, being out of repair, the remaining water was confined in a small hollow in the otherwise dry bed. Whilst there heavy rain came on, and, as we stood on the high ground, we observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people went towards him and raised a cry of fish! fish! We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling upwards through the grass in the rills formed ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... je me veux faire L'heritier pour me satisfaire : Je ne veux vivre pour autruy. Fol le pelican qui se blesse Pour les siens, et fol qui se laisse ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... familiarity with nautical invalids seemed to have filled him full of theological hypoes concerning the state of their souls. He was at once the physician and priest of the sick, washing down his boluses with ghostly consolation, and among the sailors went by the name of The Pelican, a fowl whose hanging pouch imparts to it a most ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... airs for "The Pelican Chorus" and "The Yonghy-Bonghy Bo," which were arranged for the piano by Professor Pome, of San ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy woman, she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata of society! Nay, had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel, it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... mouths of the Rhone, there are, so men say, desolate marshes, tenanted by herds of half-wild horses; foul mud- banks, haunted by the pelican and the flamingo, and waders from the African shore; a region half land, half water, where dwell savage folk, decimated by fever and ague. But short of those Bouches du Rhone, the railway turns to the ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... grief. Yet deem not, poet, though this pain have come, That therefore, here below, thou mayst be dumb. Best are the songs most desperate in their woe— Immortal ones, which are pure sobs I know. When the wave-weary pelican once more, Midst evening-vapors, gains his nest of reeds, His famished brood run forward on the shore To see where high above the surge he speeds. As though even now their prey they could destroy, They hasten to their sire with screams of joy, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... in the water with its body entirely submerged, it looks not unlike a snake forging along. Hence it is also known as the snake-neck. The cormorant and darter, though here classed for convenience' sake among the divers, really belong to the pelican family. The guillemot is a diving bird found in the Northern seas, while the penguin may be looked upon as representing the divers of the Southern Ocean. The penguin is a most awkward bird ashore, but in its native element its movements are elegant and rapid. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... looking with the eyes of one ignorant of zoology, had credited the building of coral reefs to all kinds of creatures which lived on and near the coral after it had been made; and his erroneous views had been amplified and developed by James Montgomery, in his "Pelican Island," into the most fantastically incorrect description that ever versifier penned. Sad to relate, his lines were often quoted, as if correct, by scientific ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... his poem, "The Ocean;" in 1806, "The Wanderer in Switzerland;" in 1808, "The West Indies;" and in 1812, "The World before the Flood." In 1819 he published "Greenland, a Poem, in Five Cantos;" and in 1825 appeared "The Pelican Island, and other Poems." Of all those productions, "The Wanderer in Switzerland" attained the widest circulation; and, notwithstanding an unfavourable and injudicious criticism in the Edinburgh Review, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... broad sheets of clear plastic, animated signs, the grass and flowerbeds of a small park, people walking swiftly or idly. The huge gyro-stabilized bulk did not move noticeably to the long Pacific swell. Pelican Station was the colony's "downtown," its shops and theaters and restaurants, ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... rapidly toward the zenith. A dazzling light was spread through the air, along the whitish hills strewed with cylindric cactuses, and over a sea ever calm, the shores of which were peopled with alcatras,* (* A brown pelican, of the size of a swan. (Pelicanus fuscus, Linn.)) egrets, and flamingoes. The splendour of the day, the vivid colouring of the vegetable world, the forms of the plants, the varied plumage of the birds, everything was ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... labored to cement. We drove to the race-course to see the review of troops. A flag was presented to the Washington Artillery by ladies. Senator Judah Benjamin made an impassioned speech. The banner was orange satin on one side, crimson silk on the other, the pelican and brood embroidered in pale green and gold. Silver crossed cannon surmounted it, orange-colored fringe surrounded it, and crimson tassels drooped from it. It was a brilliant, unreal scene; with military bands clashing triumphant music, elegant vehicles, high-stepping horses, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... but then, again, they may not. I feel rather mean sometimes when I see a new arrival looking with big eyes at our merry table. Theoretically, I think one ought to be nice to new-comers in an hotel. It's such a pelican-in-the-wilderness feeling. I'd hate it myself, but practically I'm afraid I'm not particularly friendly. We are so complete that we don't want outsiders. They'd spoil the fun. Don't you think one is justified in being a little bit ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the Port. Alcatraz, a pelican), the name of a genus of aquatic birds (Diomedea), closely allied to the petrels, and belonging, like them, to the order Tubinares. In the name Diomedea, assigned to them by Linnaeus, there is a reference to the mythical metamorphosis ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... bones by a discriminating and appreciative Providence. There is, for instance, or was until lately, one house which some hundred and fifteen years ago was the suburban residence of the old sea-captain governor, Kerlerec. It stands up among the oranges as silent and gray as a pelican, and, so far as we know, has never had one cypress plank added or subtracted since its master was called to France and thrown into the Bastile. Another has two dormer windows looking out westward, and, when the setting sun strikes the panes, reminds one of a man ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... sheepskins and felt against the cold, he alone went about in his ordinary cloak, and barefoot over the ice and snow; and he further describes his bearing in a retreat from a lost battle, how "there you might see him, just as he is in the streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody, even from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet with a stout resistance." [Footnote: Plato, Symp. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... friend, after a moment of standing in the court- yard, of patting the pelican, of trying their blandishments on the flamingo, of catching up the bantam, and filling the air with their purring, and caressing, and incessant chatter, passed beneath the low door to the inner sanctum of madame. The two ladies were clearly bent on a few moments of unreserved ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... denizens of the lake, who, startled by such an unusual sound, answered it with their various cries in a screaming concert. The screech of the crane and the Louisiana heron, the hoarse hooting of owls, and the hoarser croak of the pelican, mingled together; and, louder than all, the scream of the osprey and the voice of the bald eagle—the last falling upon the ear with sharp metallic repetitions that exactly resembled the filing ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... fasten it with, and yet they will always find one made by others to shelter themselves in. Here were no fewer than six unbeautiful creatures, brothers and sisters, hatched from eggs on which their parent earwig sat incubating just like an eagle or dove or swallow, or, better still, like a pelican; for in the end did she not give of her own life-fluid to nourish her children? Unbeautiful, yet not without a glory superior to that of the Purple Emperor, and the angelic blue Morpho, and the broad-winged ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose—But is it a crime in me to wish to marry her? Would any other woman think it so? and choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the house-top, rather than have a mate that would chirp about her all ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... shortly preceded the ruin brought about by the Dissolution, was set upon the Priory Church by Bishop Fox in 1520, in the magnificent altar-screen, which through all its mutilations has borne witness to his work in his favourite device of the "Pelican in her piety," and the humorous allusion to his name, in the figure of a man chasing a fox, among its sculptured ornaments. The west end of the church was considerably altered, and a new western doorway inserted, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley

... a masque. It may be an owl's head with mother-of-pearl eyes, or a wooden pelican's beak, or a wolf's head. It may be a wooden animal's face, which can be pulled apart by a string, and reveal under it an effigy of a human face, the first masque changing into great ears. The museum at Ottawa, Canada, contains a great number of such masques, and some missionaries in the Northwest ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... panorama of the strange animals in the cages which they passed. Afterwards he thought it queer that he should have seen them so clearly. He remembered especially seeing pelicans, with their preposterous, pendant throats. He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican. He remembered a hornbill, which was simply a huge yellow beak with a small bird tied on behind it. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... the coming of that day. The morals of antiquity, of the law of Moses and of Christianity, are ours. We recognize every teacher of Morality, every Reformer, as a brother in this great work. The Eagle is to us the symbol of Liberty, the Compasses of Equality, the Pelican of Humanity, and our order of Fraternity. Laboring for these, with Faith, Hope, and Charity as our armor, we will wait with patience for the final triumph of Good and the complete manifestation of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... sand and mud, there is great plenty of water-fowl, most of which were altogether unknown to us: One of the most remarkable was black and white, much larger than a swan, and in shape somewhat resembling a pelican. On these banks of sand and mud there are great quantities of oysters, mussels, cockles, and other shell-fish, which seem to be the principal subsistence of the inhabitants, who go into shoal water with their little ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... I gave them some rat-tail jelly and buttered mice for breakfast, and they were as discontented as they could be. They wanted some boiled pelican, but of course I knew it wouldn't be good for them. So all I said was "Go to Number Two, Finborough Road, and ask for Agnes Hughes, and if it's really good for you, she'll give you some." Then I shook hands with ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... but in effect older, having from birth eaten only ill-cooked food, and looking it; profoundly unconscious of any shortcoming in his education, which he had got from a small church-pecked college of the pelican sort that feed it raw from their own bosoms. One of his smallest deficiencies was that he had never seen as much art as there is in one handsome dinner-plate. Now, here he was, riding forth to learn for himself, privately, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... later shipwreck I painfully rescued myself and with painful struggles recovered my health of mind." At a still later date (1824) Goethe expressed himself with equal emphasis to the same purport. "That is a creation (Werther)," he told Eckermann, "which I, like the pelican, fed with the blood of my own heart. There is in it so much that was deepest in my own experience, so much of my own thoughts and sensations, that, in truth, a romance extending to ten such volumes might be made out of it. Since its appearance, I have read it ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... with many other of God's servants in the day of their temptations in this world; and a sore time it is. Job complained under it, so did Heman, Paul, and Christ (John 6:66; 2 Tim 1:15; Job 19:13-19). Now a man is as forlorn as a pelican in the wilderness, as an owl in the desert, or as a sparrow upon the house-top. If a man cannot now go to the throne of grace by prayer, through Christ, and so fetch grace for his support from thence, what can he do? He cannot live of himself (John 15:4). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... reenforcement^; commissariat. provender &c (food) 298; ensilage; viaticum. caterer, purveyor, commissary, quartermaster, manciple^, feeder, batman, victualer, grocer, comprador [Sp.], restaurateur; jackal, pelican; sutler &c (merchant) 797 [Obs.]. grocery shop, grocery store. V. provide; make provision, make due provision for; lay in, lay in a stock, lay in a store. supply, suppeditate^; furnish; find, find one in; arm. cater, victual, provision, purvey, forage; beat up for; stock, stock with; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... say that, do'e? An' me as good a man, an' better, than you or your brother either! Money—you remind me I'm—Theer! You can go to blue, blazin' hell for your granite crosses—that's wheer you can go—you or any other poking, prying pelican! Offer money to me, would 'e? Who be you, or any other man, to offer me money for wasted time? As if I was a road scavenger or another man's servant! God's truth! you forget who ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... of Lord Alfred Douglas, and had no inkling of his poetic talent. I did not like several of Oscar's particular friends, and I had a special dislike for the father of Lord Alfred Douglas. I knew Queensberry rather well. I was a member of the old Pelican Club, and I used to go there frequently for a talk with Tom, Dick or Harry, about athletics, or for a game of chess with George Edwards. Queensberry was there almost every night, and someone introduced me to him. I was eager to know him because he ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... movement of any sort (I speak of what I saw at Daytona) except to fly straight on, one behind another. If church ceremonials are still open to amendment, I would suggest, in no spirit of irreverence, that a study of pelican processionals would be certain to yield edifying results. Nothing done in any cathedral could be more solemn. Indeed, their solemnity was so great that I came at last to find it almost ridiculous; but that, of course, was only from a want of ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... of April, I went to Bath; and on my arrival at the Pelican inn, found lying for me an obliging invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, by whom I was agreeably entertained almost constantly during my stay. They were gone to the rooms; but there was a kind note from Dr. Johnson, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... food when I required it. Again I followed to the sea where, casting in my net, I drew up myriads of the finny tribe to satisfy my appetite. Oft drew I up such numbers vast that having naught to do but to amuse myself I fed my extra fish the friendly pelican that had become companion in my walks along the shore. A simple man was I with not too many thoughts and only few desires. My body was my foremost daily thought, and little cared ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James

... commonplace animals indulged in the habits which they had learnt in fables, and of which only some feeble vestiges now remain in the eloquence of strolling showmen. The elephant had no joints, and was caught by felling the tree against which he rested his stiff limbs in sleep; the pelican pierced its breast for the good of its young; ostriches were regularly painted with a horseshoe in their bills, to indicate their ordinary diet; storks refused to live except in republics and free states; the crowing of a cock put lions to flight, and men ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... Cis, and here he is! Great Caesar, what a pelican of the wilderness! Poor Ted! She can't live ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... the English tin, the stick-cinnamon modes; the fresh orange, green linden-blossom modes; the frogs', the calves', the goldfinch modes; the mode—save the mark!—of the secret gormandiser; the lark, the snail tones; the barking tone; the balsam, the marjoram modes; the tawny lion-fell, the faithful pelican modes; the respendent gold-galloon mode! Walther cries out to Heaven for help. "Those," proceeds David, "are only the names! Now learn to sing them exactly as the masters have established, every word and tone sounding clearly, the voice rising and ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... and her home in the wilderness, one must start at Le Pas as the last outpost of civilization and strike northward through the long Pelican Lake waterways to Reindeer Lake. Nearly forty miles up the east shore of the lake, the adventurer will come to the mouth of the Gray Loon—narrow and silent stream that winds under overhanging forests—and after that a two-hours' journey in a canoe will bring ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... with negroes? These difficulties recalled former ones. Lost in their mazes, Captain Delano, who had now regained the deck, was uneasily advancing along it, when he observed a new face; an aged sailor seated cross-legged near the main hatchway. His skin was shrunk up with wrinkles like a pelican's empty pouch; his hair frosted; his countenance grave and composed. His hands were full of ropes, which he was working into a large knot. Some blacks were about him obligingly dipping the strands for him, here and there, as the exigencies of ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville



Words linked to "Pelican" :   Old world white pelican, family Pelecanidae, white pelican, pelecaniform seabird, Pelecanidae, Pelican State, Pelecanus onocrotalus, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, pelican crossing



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