instance, he told a story of a raven that found a bucket by a sepulchre in time of great drought, and raised the water to a drinking level by dropping stones into the bucket.

Almost all Biblical mention of the raven was made in the shape of simile and metaphor, but these allusions served to drive home a point and make a thing well remembered, which was the reason they were used. They also grounded a feeling against the bird, just as similar things have prejudiced the unthinking against the owl and hawk. The raven is a curious bird, and at different epochs in the world has figured in much interesting history.

There is against it that it is a carrion eater, that we were early prejudiced on account of its being used to scare people; that it preys upon other birds and helpless animals; that it will carry away anything small and bright it can pick up; and that where it is shown any mercy at all it develops an impudence and boldness that is annoying.

There is in its favour splendid size and appearance; it had the qualities that made Noah select it as the first bird to send from the ark; the Almighty honoured it by making it His instrument for the care of Elijah; it is tender and loving with its mate and nestlings; it is very valiant in defence of its young; and it is connected with much mythology, many religions, and is one of the oldest and most interesting birds of history.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PELICAN

"I am like a pelican of the wilderness."-David.

Of all the birds of flight that occupied the stretch of sea coast along the western borders of Bible lands, the white and brown pelicans were the largest and most picturesque. Much of this coast was rocky declivity or stretches of sand covered with scrub trees and bushes, beaten by the winds sweeping the length of the great sea. To the west washed the Mediterranean, dotted with ships of commerce and small crafts of deep sea fishermen ; to the east rose the mountains of Palestine, while foothills, valleys, and fertile plains lay between. But as the country was not over sixty miles wide in its least extent, and one hundred in its greatest, it is probable that most of the inhabitants were familiar with the sights and sounds of the sea. So they knew its gentle breath of summer singing, and were swept by its wildest gales of winter wrath. They were accustomed to the soft clouds that hung over it in calm, the mountainous black ones of storm, all the reds and yellows of the glory of the setting sun, the endless reflections from shimmering water, and the vivid colour of almost tropical land.

No part of the picture was more wonderful than the great white birds that swept across the waters, fished around the shores, and perched on the trees or rocks of the coast, sleeping while their food digested.

David must have been feeling at his very worst when he compared himself with these great, disconsolate-looking birds as they perched, for I do not think he in any way resembled them. But any soul tuned to the poetic heights of David also knows the depths of despair; and

it was in old age, when trouble came, that ne likened himself to the pelican. Of course, there is the usual discussion as to whether the pelican is the bird intended, some claiming that sea coast is not wilderness. That is just what great stretches of Mediterranean coast were in the days of David: miles of sand and rocks, scrubby trees, and the islands near the coast were complete wilderness. The Hebrew" kaath means "to vomit," and so either the pelican or its close relative, the cormorant, was intended, as both these birds disgorge immense quantities of food to their nesting mates and young. The pelican probably took its name from its habit of emptying its pouch when frightened, to lighten its weight for flight. So the term seems more appropriate to it than to the cormorant, which is not credited with this habit.

Pelicans perching were the homeliest birds imaginable. But on wing any bird that could range cloud spaces, with snowy wings sweeping eight and one-half feet in extent, above a great turbulent sea, was a most impressive picture. The pelicans were included in the awe, colour splendour, and majesty of the great sea, and all the inland water that they also inhabited in Bible times. Then they dropped from their high estate, and perching, gorged and sleepy, their big bills pressing their breasts in dejected attitude, they became birds of "abomination." Their diet and habits placed them among the creatures prohibited for food; and this unprepossessing attitude, and their coarse, rough, grunting voices, went further and classed them with the birds used to inspire terror and repulsion in people who were being warned of the devastation that followed evil living.

The white pelican had yellow tints on the top of the head and neck, and the tip of the beak was red. It stood five feet in height, and had a wide wing-sweep. The beak was very long, the upper mandible having a sharp tip curving over the lower. Under the lower mandible, and extending down the throat, was a large pouch in which the bird collected the fish for its food and to carry to its nest. The capacity of this pouch was so great that the pelican could load it with fresh fish until unable to

fly with the weight, and so it took its name from its power to eject this burden when it wished to fly in fear.

The white birds were pictures of the morning and evening sky. When the sun peeped over the Lebanon ranges, topped Gilead, and day dawned in the brilliant splendour of Palestine, these big white birds aroused from sleep. Spreading their large snowy wings, they arose to great heights by beating and soaring alternately, thus airing and exercising their bodies. Then they dropped from the brilliant cloud spaces, waded along the shores of the Mediterranean, the Dead Sea, Galilee, and the Jordan, and caught a supply of fish to last until evening. Through the middle of the day they perched and digested their food.

Again at evening, when the red sun swung above the Arabian desert, crossed Egypt, and buried itself in the green waters of the great sea, the white pelicans took wing, as if to gain a high space from which to observe the purple, yellow, red, and blue of the sky as the great ball of fire sank slowly into the water. Over the wilderness spaces of coast, over the villages of the fishermen, over the ports of commerce, half way across the brilliant spaces of Palestine, they sailed and soared; now over the Mediterranean, again above land, and only the Almighty knew what they saw. But I love to try to think myself up there with them, and imagine the sunset, and the glory of night on the sea and land in the Palestine of those days.

The brown pelicans were even larger than the white; the greatest, called the Dalmatian, standing a foot taller and having a twelve-foot sweep of wing. The brown birds had a head of dirty white, tinged with yellow on the top and on the throat, the long beak and pouch of the species, and webbed feet similar to geese. All of them were indifferent walkers, but of strong flight.

They loved to congregate along wilderness places by the sea. The male birds were strenuous lovers, and courted their mates with much attention. They helped build nests, with their big beaks breaking twigs from dead bushes and placing them crosswise until they had a deep, solid foundation. This they hollowed out and lined with dry

reeds, rushes, and roots. These nests were at times five and six feet across. The birds usually laid three rough eggs, varying in tint with the species. Those of the brown birds were dirty white with a rosy flush, and of the white ones, a whiter egg with bluish tints.

The young were naked at first, then covered with white down, and they feathered before leaving the nest. The brown birds fished throughout the day, and gathered greater quantities of larger size than the white. Fish weighing two and a half pounds have been taken from the pouch of the male. They carried such numbers to a nest that the young could not consume them, and many were dropped on the ground. The hot sun of the seashore shining on this offal between the closely placed nests soon produced conditions unbearable to mortals. Small wonder Moses thought pelicans unfit for food.

Pliny described a bird that, from the text, I think must have been a pelican. He wrote:- The onocrotali much resemble swans, and surely they might be thought the very same and no other, but that they have within their throat another kind of gizzar beside the craw, in which these fowls, being insatiable, bestow all that ever they can get; whereby it is of a wonderful great capacity and will receive very much. Now when they have done ravening and filled this poke, soon after they conveyed it thence by little and little into their mouth, and there chew the cud until after it be well prepared, they swallow it down into the very craw and belly indeed." This appeals to me as pelican history.

So these great birds were a familiar sight to all residents of Bible lands, for they were to be seen all along the coast, around the inland lakes and rivers, and winging their flight back and forth across the plains and valleys as they changed feeding grounds or flew for exercise. Because the Holy Land covered so little space, it is certain people were familiar with the hoarse, grunting cries of the pelicans, though they were not very great talkers.

We know what it means when Moses put a bird on the abomination list; and from the use all other Bible writers made of the pelican, one can only conclude that