fleeing shoals under water; to the swift and
slippery fish all are alike terrible in their certainty.

There are, however, other varieties of the fishing bill. Some have a
hook at the point, as that of the cormorant, and some are straight at
the top, but curved on the under side. This last form is handy for
storks, which do not pluck fish out of water so much, but scoop up
frogs, crabs, and reptiles from the ground. The ridiculous bill of the
puffin, or sea-parrot, is an eccentricity. There may be some idea in it,
but I suspect it is an effect of vanity merely, being coloured blue,
yellow, and red, and quite in keeping with the other absurdities of the
wearer.

Apart from all these and by itself stands a princely fisher whose bill
is no modification, but an original invention and a marvellous one.
Larger than a swan and gluttonous withal, the pelican cannot live on
single fishes. It has given up angling altogether and taken to netting;
and the way in which the net has been constructed out of the pair of
forceps provided in the original plan of its construction is as well
worth your examining as anything I know. It is a foot in length, the
upper jaw is flat and broad, while the lower consists of two thin,
elastic bones joined at the point, a mere ring to carry the curious
yellow bag that hangs from it. In pictures this is represented as a
creel in which the kind pelican carries home the children's breakfast;
you are allowed to see the tail of a big fish hanging out. But it is not
a creel; it is a net. The great birds, marshalled in line on some broad
lake or marsh, and beating the water with their wings, drive the fish
before them until they have got a dense crowd huddled in panic and
confusion between them and the shore. Now watch them narrowly. As
each monstrous bill opens, the thin bones of the lower jaw stretch
sideways to the breadth of a span by some curious mechanism not
described in the books, and at the same time the shrunken bag expands
into a deep, capacious net. Simultaneously the whole instrument is
plunged into the struggling, silvery mass and comes up full. The side
bones instantly contract again, and the upper jaw is clapped on them
like a lid. No wonder the fishermen of the East detest the pelican.

[Illustration: HERE THE COMPETITION HAS BEEN VERY KEEN INDEED.]

[Illustration: AS WONDERFUL AS THE PELICAN, BUT HOW OPPOSITE!]

In the same marsh, perhaps, standing with unequalled grace upon the
longe