Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Pelican   Listen
noun
Pelican  n.  (Written also pelecan)  
1.
(Zool.) Any large webfooted bird of the genus Pelecanus, of which about a dozen species are known. They have an enormous bill, to the lower edge of which is attached a pouch in which captured fishes are temporarily stored. Note: The American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) and the brown species (Pelecanus fuscus) are abundant on the Florida coast in winter, but breed about the lakes in the Rocky Mountains and British America.
2.
(Old Chem.) A retort or still having a curved tube or tubes leading back from the head to the body for continuous condensation and redistillation. Note: The principle is still employed in certain modern forms of distilling apparatus.
Frigate pelican (Zool.), the frigate bird. See under Frigate.
Pelican fish (Zool.), deep-sea fish (Eurypharynx pelecanoides) of the order Lyomeri, remarkable for the enormous development of the jaws, which support a large gular pouch.
Pelican flower (Bot.), the very large and curiously shaped blossom of a climbing plant (Aristolochia grandiflora) of the West Indies; also, the plant itself.
Pelican ibis (Zool.), a large Asiatic wood ibis (Tantalus leucocephalus). The head and throat are destitute of feathers; the plumage is white, with the quills and the tail greenish black.
Pelican in her piety (in heraldry and symbolical art), a representation of a pelican in the act of wounding her breast in order to nourish her young with her blood; a practice fabulously attributed to the bird, on account of which it was adopted as a symbol of the Redeemer, and of charity.
Pelican's foot (Zool.), a marine gastropod shell of the genus Aporrhais, esp. Aporrhais pes-pelicani of Europe.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Pelican" Quotes from Famous Books



... God. The air was as soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it. The weeds appeared very fresh. Many land birds, one of which they took, flying towards the southwest, also grajaos, ducks and a pelican were seen." ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... 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 ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... pined 'Cause I see a woman kind? Or a well disposed nature Joined with a lovely feature? Be she meeker, kinder, than Turtle-dove or pelican, If she be not so to me, What care I ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... pelican, larger than a vulture and remarkable for the dimensions of its throat, fell upon the flagship. It is the same bird, which, according to the testimony of several writers, formerly lived domesticated in the marshes of Ravenna. I ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... better to go abroad till he could come to some practical arrangement with his creditors. He accordingly went to Boulogne on a visit to the father of the young lady in question, and while he was there induced him to insure his life with the Pelican Company for 3000 pounds. As soon as the necessary formalities had been gone through and the policy executed, he dropped some crystals of strychnine into his coffee as they sat together one evening after dinner. He himself did not gain any monetary advantage by doing this. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... a sailor. The easiest route to Hudson Bay was by way of the sea. More than once after his first experience he led to the Bay a naval expedition. His exploits are still remembered with pride in French naval annals. In 1697 he sailed the Pelican through the ice-floes of Hudson Straits. He was attacked by three English merchantmen, with one hundred and twenty guns against his forty-four. One of the English ships escaped, one Iberville sank with all on board, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... raises, The systematic "Sweater," who sucks wealth From toiling crowds by cunning and by stealth,— He is all right, he has no maudlin twist, He does not shock the Individualist! But rate yourselves to give the poor free reading? The Pelican to warm her nestlings bleeding, Was no such monument of feeble folly. Let folks alone, and all will then be jolly. Let the poor perish, let the ignorant sink, The tempted tumble, and the drunkard drink! Let—no, don't let the low-born robber rob, Because,—well, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various

... difficult to pronounce and remember, they are called by any names which the captains or crews may choose to give them. Some are called after the vessel they are in; others by common names, as Jack, Tom, Bill; and some have fancy names, as Ban-yan, Fore-top, Rope-yarn, Pelican, etc., etc. Of the four who worked at our house one was named "Mr. Bingham," after the missionary at Oahu; another, Hope, after a vessel that he had been in; a third, Tom Davis, the name of his first captain; and the fourth, Pelican, from his fancied resemblance to that bird. Then there was ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... I had looked on with the unselfishness of a pelican, to see others eat candy; but now I strove with them, like a frigate bird, and made them give up some of it. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... Thirsting and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace he spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering. He heard the bitterns call From ruined palace-wall, Answered them brotherly. He held communion With the she-pelican Of lonely piety. Basilisk, cockatrice, Flocked to his homilies, With mail of dread device, With monstrous barbed stings, With eager dragon-eyes; Great rats on leather wings And poor blind broken things, Foul in their miseries. And ever with him went, Of all his wanderings Comrade, with ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... Albert Weinert, repeated alternately above corridors around court. Man, a hunter, feeding pelican. ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... spear-like bill. When swimming 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 ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... alighted fearlessly on the rigging and sang. Dolphins frolicked about the keels. Flying-fish, pursued by their enemy the bonito (mackerel), rose from the water in rainbow argosies, and fell sometimes inside the caravels. A heron, a pelican and a duck passed, flying southwest. By the true reckoning the fleet had sailed seven hundred and fifty leagues. Colon wondered whether there could be an error in the map, or whether by swerving from their course they ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... to the famous Zoo' With Bertie, and Nellie, and Dick, and Sue. And we feel quite ready to jump for glee When the wonderful birds and beasts we see. The pelican solemn with monster beak, And the plump little penguin round and sleek, Have set us laughing—Ha, ha! Ho! ho! And you'll laugh too, if you look below. To the monkey-house then we make our way, Where the monkeys chatter, and climb, and play; At the snakes we peep, then onward stroll, To ...
— London Town • Felix Leigh

... been called out by another strange and well-known fact about them of which Reginald oddly enough takes no note— namely, that they line their nests with down plucked from their own bosom; thus realizing the fable which has made the pelican for so many centuries the type of the Church. It is a question, indeed, whether the pelican, which is always represented in mediaeval paintings and sculptures with a short bill, instead of the enormous ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... 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 yacht: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

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

... 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 empty were carried into the bay, and miles of track ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... Doctor Joe had sailed away on the mail boat from Fort Pelican, bound for New York, that far distant, mysterious, wonderful city of which he had told so many marvellous tales. Thomas had grave doubts that they would ever see him again, though he had said that he would some day return to visit his friends ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... of a pelican seems to be a very lazy, if not a very pleasant one. Man, ever on the watch to turn the habits of animals to his own account, observing how good a fisherman the pelican is, often catches and tames him, and makes him fish for him. I have heard of a bird of this kind in America, which was so well ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... the ship in question and her crew, accompanied by the then Minister for Marine Affairs, a gallant officer who shall be nameless, but who was better fitted for giving words of command than for extemporising speeches. Once on board the... Pelican (I will use that name, though it is not the real one), and the inspection of the crew being over, the King told the minister he desired to commemorate his visit by the bestowal of at least one Cross of Honour. The idea was quite unexpected, but after some consideration it was decided to give the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... 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 whole gave him a sensation, the vividness of which he ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... Bird Reservations distributed in seventeen States and Territories from Porto Rico to Hawaii and Alaska. The creation of these reservations at once placed the United States in the front rank in the world work of bird protection. Among these reservations are the celebrated Pelican Island rookery in Indian River, Florida; the Mosquito Inlet Reservation, Florida, the northernmost home of the manatee; the extensive marshes bordering Klamath and Malhuer Lakes in Oregon, formerly the scene of slaughter of ducks for market and ruthless destruction of plume birds for ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... after, there was a special stir 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 ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... the eagle, the turkey-buzzard, the hawk, pelican, heron, gull, cormorant, crane, swan, and a great variety of wild ducks and geese. The pigeon, woodcock, and pheasant, are found in the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... the silence but the cry of the pelican and other birds of the night, with the occasional sound of the escaping steam of a steamer traveling toward ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... 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 death was due to his remaining on deck to ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... make plans for escape from this palace of his desires, when one morning, just as one venerable mandarin was saying to another, in their usual edifying style of conversation, "Pelican of the Morning, before the magic charm of thy lofty countenance I am spell-bound, like an albatross bewildered amid the flapping sails of a mighty—" down burst the door with a crash, and a lion rushed roaring in ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... ever-present turkey-buzzard and other vultures, hawks, owls, and sea-eagles, are common; as is the Mexican jay, the ring-bird, the rice-bird, swallow, and numerous varieties of humming-birds. Among the water birds are the pelican, the muscovy, and black duck; the spoon-bill, plover, curlew, teal, darter; while herons, ibises, and cranes, are found in great numbers on the shores of the lagoons and rivers. In the interior of the country the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... not, my brother Edward's son, For that I was his father Edward's son. That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd: My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,— Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!— May be a precedent and witness good That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood: ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... abundant in its bed; the breadth was considerable, and the channel was well-marked by 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, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... 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

... 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, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... and waterproof in the bag and donned the bowler and the top-coat. They fitted fairly well. Likewise the cuffs and collar, though here I struck a snag, for I had lost my scarf somewhere in the Coolin, and Amos, pelican-like, had to surrender the rusty black tie which adorned his own person. It was a queer rig, and I felt like nothing on earth in it, but Amos ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

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

... prairie, and its gigantic congener the "sage grouse," whirr up at intervals along the path. The waters have their denizens, in the grey Canada and white-fronted geese—ducks of numerous species—the stupid pelican and shy loon—gulls, cormorants, and the noble swan; while the groves of alamo ring with the music of numerous bright-winged songsters, scarcely known ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... treated 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 a Crane,' ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... 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 ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... captives lacked this saving accompaniment. And, accordingly, no sooner had their steeds begun to tread heath and green sward, and Gabriel Kettledrummle had again raised his voice with, "Also I uplift my voice like that of a pelican in the wilderness"— ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... catch a crab, from which Columbus infers that they cannot be more than eighty leagues distant from land. The 18th, they see many birds, and a cloud in the distance; and that night they expect to see land. On the 19th, in the morning, comes a pelican (a bird not usually seen twenty leagues from the coast); in the evening, another; also drizzling rain without wind, a certain sign, as the diary says, of proximity ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... 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 ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... the corallite or sea-weed, perhaps a little fierce-looking bristly fish, which shot under a ledge of the rock all amongst the limpets, acorn barnacles, or the thousands of yellow and brown and striped snaily fellows that crawled about in company with the periwinkles and pelican's feet. ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden, the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164 men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... Cape de 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 ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... of that Union which he 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, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... seaweed and judged they would soon see at least a tiny island. On the 18th the mended Pinta, which had run ahead of the other two boats, reported that a large flock of birds had flown past; next day two pelicans hovered around, and all the sailors declared that a pelican never flew more than sixty or seventy miles from home. On September 21 a whale was seen—"an indication of land," wrote the commander, "as whales always keep near the coast." The next day there was a strong head wind, and though it kept them back from the promised land, ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... published. Here again I find interesting records of imitative dancing. One dance imitates the swimming movements of the large lizard (Varanus), another is an imitation of the movements of a crab, another imitates those of a pigeon, and another those of a pelican. At a dance which I witnessed in the Roro village of Seria a party from Delena danced the "Cassowary" dance; and Father Egedi says it is certainly so called because its movements are in some way an imitation ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... we 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 the worse for the pelican. The old moralists, I say, permitted the ant to enforce ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... as if the cash were stones, flung wantonly by truants at a dove-cot; and forth from the crock, that egg of wo, had been hatched a red-eyed vulture, to tyrannize in this sad home, where but lately the pelican had dwelt, had spread her fostering wing, and poured out the wealth ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... sight. I never heard them utter a sound, or saw them make a 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 ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... be. Long-legged creatures they are, standing as on stilts, and full five feet high, snow-white in colour, all but their huge beaks, which are jet black, with a band of naked skin around their necks, and a sort of pouch like a pelican's, this being of a bright scarlet. For they are garzones soldados, or "soldier-cranes," so-called from their red throats bearing a fancied resemblance to the facings on the collar of a soldier's coat, in the uniform of ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... 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 ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... on the north side of the cabin and blow it to pieces, just to scare the monster out, or kill him and his daughter, it did not matter which. Edwards praised the plan. He said that if it were not that he had to go to Pelican Lake that very night he would go along and help blow up the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... 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 misunderstanding, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... confusion in the mind of Priscilla between a pelican and a toucan, because she saw them both for the first time on the same day. In this case it consisted of an indigo splodge and a long red bar cutting right through the brown wind and penetrating deeply into the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various

... took a rest, it was in closely scrutinizing the progress made by his men, in puffing a cigar like to a small high-pressure engine, or in clambering up the steep face of the crag to the signal-station, where he would peer away in all directions around the island—never missing the glance of a pelican's pinion or the leap of a fish out of water. Then he would return to the cove and begin anew the work. It was no longer the elegant Captain Brand, in knee-breeches, point-lace sleeves, and velvet doublet, seated at his ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... other time could she ever find him. If she waited till he came down to breakfast, he escaped from her in five minutes, and then he returned no more till some unholy hour in the morning. She was as good a pelican as ever allowed the blood to be torn from her own breast to satisfy the greed of her young, but she felt that she should have something back for her blood,—some return for her sacrifices. This chick would ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... party, and be independent of the other hoteliers. They may be quite nice, of course, 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 ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... illuminated splendor Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved, [107] As was beseeming to their ardent love. It joined itself there in the song and music; And fixed on them my Lady kept her look, Even as a bride, silent and motionless. "This is the one who lay upon the breast Of him our Pelican; and this is he To the great office from the cross elected." [114] My Lady thus; but therefore none the more Removed her sight from its fixed contemplation, Before or afterward, these words of hers. Even as a man who gazes, and endeavors To see the eclipsing of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... parachute, the sustaining effect 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 whilst ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... the hawk cried, 'See, O Karaz, the freshness of thy Princess of Oolb'; and the Genie regarded her till loathing curled his lip, for she grew in ghastliness to the colour of a frog, and a frog's face was hers, a camel's back, a pelican's throat, the legs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... told Charles to unpack your Gladstone and put out your clothes ready for the evening. My mistress won't be dressed, you may take my word for it, for a good three-quarters of an hour. There is nothing like a committee for dawdling along, and keeping one standing on one leg as it were, like a pelican in the wilderness, or a stuffed goose, or anything you like to call it. Don't you let Mr. Malcolm hurry his dinner, Miss Anna, for there is nothing so bad for the digestion; a good digestion comes next to a good ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... of this work combining the taste of elegance with the 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 ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... 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

... up admiration for this work. The N. Maes Spinner is very characteristic. Cuyp and Van Goyen are here; the latter's view of Dordrecht is celebrated. So is the Floating Feather of Hondecoester, a finely depicted pelican. The feather is the least part of the picture. Asselijn's angry swan is an excellent companion piece. We wish that we could describe the Jan Steens, the Dous, the Mierises, and other sterling Dutch painters. There is the gallery of Dutch and Flemish primitives about ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... finding almost immediately a firm track, soon arrived at some Indian lodges to which it led. The inhabitants were Crees belonging to the posts on the Saskatchewan from whence they had come to hunt beaver. We made but a short stay and proceeded through a swamp to Pelican Lake. Our view to the right was bounded by a range of lofty hills which extended for several miles in a north and south direction which, it may be remarked, was that of all the hilly land we had passed since ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... spring-hunting 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

... 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 ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... he replied, "He never had turned his back yet, and would not now," and stood all the fire. When the pelicans were flying over his head, he cried out, "What would Chloe (650) give for some of these to make a pelican pie!" When he is brave enough to perform such actions as are really almost incredible, what pity it is that he should for ever persist In saving things that are ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... the first was this, that she would never smile upon the girl again till this baseness should have been abandoned. She loved her girl as only mothers do love. More devoted than the pelican, she would have given her heart's blood,—had given all her life,—not only to nurture, but to aggrandize her child. The establishment of her own position, her own honour, her own name, was to her but the incidental result of ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... about clothes, and 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 by a whole flock, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... 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, that he should ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

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

... 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 Pour ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... try to get a supply ship up to it, a very small rocket-driven cargo ship named Pelican One. The crew of the Platform needed food and air and water—and especially the means of self-defense. Today's take-off would be the first attempt at a ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... 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 ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... 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 suppose this is what the brigade goes north ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... cried the Pelican bird, snapping his bill together just like a big pair of scissors. "I ate the first one after it fell to the ground near me, and I ate the second one that you shot over here. They're good—marbles are! I like ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... is very wide 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 Roman Catholic ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... only practicable when the fish 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 camp for the purpose of killing ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... the 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 north, toward ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... unsullied by any trace of vapour. The sun was ascending 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 stamped with ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... figures of "The Primitive Man" and one of "The Primitive Woman" are repeated above the cloister all around the court. The woman carries a child on her back, one man is feeding a pelican, and the other is a hunter returning with a club in one hand and his quarry in the other. These figures are remarkably well suited to their purpose, balancing one another exactly; they are so much a part of ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... work? The Dove, the winged Columbus of man's haven? The tender Love-Bird—or the filial Stork? The punctual Crane—the providential Raven? The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young? Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday That feathered marvel with a human tongue, Because she does not preach upon a Sunday— But what is ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... 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 ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... wings and floats over the ocean like a white sea-king. The greater part of his feathers are white, but the head and back are shaded with grey. There are many kinds of albatross, but the great Wandering Albatross, as it is called, is the largest, and though the body is not much bigger than that of a pelican, the wings, which are long and narrow, have been known to measure as much as fourteen feet across when fully expanded, or spread out. Must he not look a noble bird, sailing as he does calmly round and round, far up in the air, over those southern seas? From the ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... so,' 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," ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... flat head, red hair, small, dull, sunken eyes, and the corners of his mouth hanging down to his chin. So, among those court-bred people, "whenever M. Brockdorf passed through the apartments, every one called out after him 'Pelican,'" because "this bird was the most hideous we knew of." But what regard for the feelings of a person of inferior rank could be expected from his enemies, in a court where the dearest ties and the tenderest sorrows were dashed aside with the formal brutality recorded by Catharine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... published 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, at once procured an honourable place for the author among his contemporaries. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... 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 ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... Woodward, my friend, 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 ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... 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

... Yoloffes, or Black Crocodiles of Senegal; but it would be easy to destroy these animals. In September, this lake seems wholly covered with white nymphaea, or water-lilly, and in winter time it is frequented by a multitude of waterfowl, among which, are distinguished by their large size, die great pelican, the fine crested crane, which has received the name of the royal-bird, the gigantic heron, known in Senegambia by the venerable name of Marabou, on account of its bald head, with a few scattered white hairs, its lofty stature, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... since they arrived at the dignity of memberships in the first class and company. They were cousins, and both were Southern born. Marcy was a "Tarheel," because he came from North Carolina, and Rodney was called a "Pelican," Louisiana being his ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... from the wreck that could be useful to us, we made preparations to sail, and at daylight, the 25th, got underweigh with my two companions, and resumed our course to the northward, over that of last year, excepting that we steered inside of Pelican Island, and to leeward of Island 4. We passed several large sting-rays asleep on the surface of the sea, which our people ineffectually endeavoured to harpoon. On the former island large flights of pelicans were seen, and upon the sandbank, to the southward of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... sympathise with each other's distress or danger. This is the case even with birds. Captain Stansbury (13. As quoted by Mr. L.H. Morgan, 'The American Beaver,' 1868, p. 272. Capt. Stansbury also gives an interesting account of the manner in which a very young pelican, carried away by a strong stream, was guided and encouraged in its attempts to reach the shore by half a dozen old birds.) found on a salt lake in Utah an old and completely blind pelican, which was very fat, and must have been well fed for a long time by his companions. Mr. Blyth, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... 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

... temple was consecrated to the Pelican and was used by an English officer to deliver a short discourse on Masonic charity, which the doctor regarded as vulnerable from a moral point of view and suggestive ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... 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 of the companions ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... it. 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

... corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. There is no assuaging of the hurt; thy wound is grievous; all that hear the report of thee clap their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?" And another prophet had uttered the curse: "The pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the capitals thereof; their voice shall sound in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds; for he hath laid bare the cedar-work. This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, 'I am, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... rivalry between the two great cities to prevent your noticing ours, which, without the slightest feeling of prejudice, I must consider as infinitely superior. I propose this month to call your attention to the two great events in our theatrical and musical world—the appearance of the talented Miss PELICAN, and the production of Tarbox's celebrated "Ode ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... 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

... 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 ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... unique in the life-work of Titian, and in some ways his most sublime invention. Genius alone could have triumphed over the heterogeneous and fantastic surroundings in which he has chosen to enframe his great central group. And yet even these—the great rusticated niche with the gold mosaic of the pelican feeding its young, the statues of Moses on one side and of the Hellespontic Sibyl on the other—but serve to heighten the awe of the spectator. The artificial light is obtained in part from a row of crystal lamps ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... 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

... angels—give thy soul relief. Naught makes us nobler than a noble 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, On swollen necks ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... 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 you'm ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... approached the banks the pelican, scared from his lonely haunt, rose upon heavy wing, and with a shrill scream flapped away through the dark aisles of the forest. The cayman plunged sullenly into the sedgy water; and the "Sajou" monkey, ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... 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 their emancipation from the despotism ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... the forest. It aroused the wild 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 ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... PELICAN.—This bird is a symbol of loneliness, separation, and yearning for the unattainable; if it is flying you will receive news from those who are far away in ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... boarded the Pelican, which, by the way, is an old British cruiser, we were received by Mr. Peter McKenzie, from Montreal, who has superintendence of eastern posts, and Captain Lovegrow, who commanded the vessel. They told us that they ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... was prepared 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 ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... 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 ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... 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, in ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... of 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 ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... river for some distance. 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

... you alluded to getting injured in a little "hazing scuffle with a pelican from the rural districts." I don't want any harm to come to you, my son, but if I went from the rural districts and another young gosling from the rural districts undertook to haze me, I would meet him when the sun goes down, and I ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... 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 during ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... and by showing himself an implacable foe to aliens. He must support all 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 ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... 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

... was 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 ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... than a vulture and remarkable for the dimensions of its throat, fell upon the flagship. It is the same bird, which, according to the testimony of several writers, formerly lived domesticated in the marshes of Ravenna. I do not know if this is still the case. This pelican let itself be easily caught, after which they took it from one vessel to another: it soon died. A flock of twenty such birds were seen on ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... and everywhere abounds in rush and cane brakes which give its sea-beach a desolate appearance. These morasses harbour thousands of alligators, whose roar had a singular effect as it rose above the breeze. Flocks of aquatic birds were to be seen on every side, the most numerous being the pelican, and a bird of the cotinga species, about the size of an English throstle, the plumage of which, being jet black and flamingo red, had a beautiful effect in the sunshine, as they flew or settled in ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... pole a 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 ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... "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 ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... his large appetite; he chases even big fish, of a size to choke him, you would think. Like his relative the Pelican, he owns a very elastic throat. I have seen a Pelican put a half-grown duck in its pouch, without much trouble. The Cormorant could not perform this feat, but his throat will stretch so as to allow the passage of large fish. Small fish he usually ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith

... be kept with great festivity at the Pelican Club. The contests will be of the friendliest character, and will be genially ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various

... any more of a splash than a pelican might have made and almost instantly Jack started taxiing ahead in the direction of the nearby ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... 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. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... that I was the little lad he remembered, he was very courteous, and desired his commendations to you and to my mother. He had been in Scotland, and had come south in the train of this rogue, Gray. I took him to see the old Pelican, and we had a breakfast aboard there. He asked much after his poor Queen, whom he loves as much as ever, and when he saw I was a man he could trust, your true son, he said that he saw less hope for ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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 [82] and other smaller birds called mayuelas. [83] There are many wild chickens and cocks, which are very small, and taste like ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... it the royal arms, and that at the sides are shields, one on the right with the arms of Lisbon—the ship guided by ravens in which St. Vincent's body floated from the east of Spain to the cape called after him—and one on the left with a pelican vulning ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... Louisiana offered great attractions, and were worthy the attention of Northern men. The passage of these resolutions indicates a better spirit than has been manifested by the inhabitants of other portions of the Pelican State. Many of the people in the Red River region profess to have been loyal to the United States throughout the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... Lapidary, that of Philippe de Thaon (before 1135), is versified from the Latin Physiologus, itself a translation from the work of an Alexandrian Greek of the second century. In its symbolic zoology the lion and the pelican are emblems of Christ; the unicorn is God; the crocodile is the devil; the stones "turrobolen," which blaze when they approach each other, are representative of man and woman. A Bestiaire d'Amour was written by Richard de Fournival, in which the emblems serve for the interpretation of human love. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... his thin voice, 'what does the Psalmist say? "I am become like a pelican in the wilderness and like an owl ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... the convenience and benefit 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 blood to feed ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... 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). Wherefore ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... carried her point, the countess reflecting with a maternal devotion equal almost to that of the pelican, that the earl could not do more than kill her. So the things were ordered as Alexandrina chose to order them, and the countess desired that the bills might be sent in to Mr Gazebee. Much self-devotion had ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... possession of Dauphine Island and held it till the peace. Under neither of the reports of the Board of Engineers and Naval Commissioners could any but sloops of war enter the bay or the anchorage between Dauphine and Pelican islands. Both reports give to that anchorage 18 feet at low water and 20-1/2 at high. The only difference between them consists in this, that in the first a bar leading to the anchorage, reducing the depth of water to 12 feet at low tide, was omitted. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... of the liquid waterproof black drawing inks (Chin-chin, Pelican, etc.). This is prepared ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... band Of level clouds had aped a silver strand; So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song, And all the people cried, 'A hellish throng To tempt us onward by the Devil planned, Yea, all from hell — keen heron, fresh green weeds, Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds, Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die In clouds of nothing round the empty sky. Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell, and rest!' — 'Steersman,' I said, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... Privileges,' regarded, as Mr. Wyrrall tells us, writing in the year 1780, "as the Magna Charta of our miners and colliers," incontrovertibly proves that it belongs to this period. It was first printed by William Cooper, at the Pelican in Little Britain, 1687, from a manuscript copy preserved in the office of the Deputy Gaveller, to which a postscript is added, "written out of a parchmt. roll, now in ye hands of Richard Morse of Clowerwall, 7 June, 1673, by Tho: Davies." Richard Morse was then ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... projecting forward from the last joint of the wing, with which they can fight when attacked by birds of prey. A very handsome bird was also shot resembling a flamingo, the body being about the size, and in plumage like a pelican; the head and neck of a deep rich purple, and formed like the flamingo; the legs bright red, long and slender; it flies extended to its greatest length, measuring six feet two inches, and across the wings seven feet two inches; its weight being ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... Not, indeed, that they had shot snipes, as they intended, but they had gotten a huge lizard (Lacerta Marmorata), of a kind they had not seen before. They had seen the large land-crab (Ruricola), and they had brought down a boatswain bird, a sort of pelican, (Pelicanus Lencocephalus), which they proposed to stuff. Accordingly after breakfast, as the weather was too hot to walk farther, the bird and the lizard were both skinned, the guns were cleaned, and I made a sketch of ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... day after the serenade, there was a dense, waiting crowd. On the other corner of Royal, where the show-windows of Hyde & Goodrich blazed with diamonds, and their loftily nested gold pelican forever fed her young from her bleeding breast, stood an equal throng. Across Canal Street, where St. Charles opens narrowly southward, were similar masses, and midway between the four corners the rising circles of ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... course of the river which from west turned to east-south-east. The height of the banks appeared to diminish rapidly and a very numerous flock of the small sea-swallow or tern indicated our vicinity to the sea. The slow-flying pelican also with its huge bill pursued, regardless of strangers its straight-forward course over ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... so is paining.[68] CEL. Fair damsel, thou mayest well have knowledge hereto: That in this city is a young knight, And of clear lineage, called Calisto, Whose life and body is all in thee, I plight. The pelican, to show nature's right, Feedeth his birds,—methinketh I should not preach thee! Thou wotest what I mean, as nature should teach thee. MEL. Ha, ha, is this the intent of thy conclusion? Tell me no more of this matter, I charge ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... 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 ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... name all the things after people and why not name something after Congressman Smith or the editor of some Montana paper and what's the reason people have to pay to ride in the parks anyways and why can't we bottle Apollinaris Spring and would some salts help the Iron Spring and what makes the pelican's mouth so funny that way and do they eat fish and is there any swans on Swan Lake Flats and which way is the garage and is there church on Sundays and who preaches and why don't they have a Presbyterian ...
— Maw's Vacation - The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone • Emerson Hough

... food. From this custom the ancients may have got the idea that Pelicans feed their young with their own life blood. The suggestion still persists, and on the seal of one of our large life insurance companies of America a Pelican and her young are represented accompanied with the motto: "I live and die for those I love." The great seal of the State of Louisiana uses a similar picture without ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... make its appearance is believed to have been the one here assigned to the sixth place. This degree known in modern Masonry as "Prince of the Rose-Croix of Heredom or Knight of the Pelican and Eagle" became the eighteenth and the most important degree in what was later called the Scottish Rite, or at the present time in England ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... won't see with my eyes and hear with my ears. That's what I call being hard. Though you should feed me with blood from your breast, I should call you a hard pelican, unless you could give me also the sympathy which I demand from you. You see, mamma, we have never allowed ourselves to ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... study of the flight of large and small birds one simple idea has prevailed—to imitate nature, which never makes mistakes. Between the albatross, which gives hardly ten beats of the wing per minute, between the pelican, which gives seventy—" ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... waters of Lake Menzala, fringed with tall reeds and eucalyptus trees, stretches to the far horizon, where quaintly shaped fishing-boats disappear with their cargoes towards distant Damietta. Thousands of wild birds, duck of all kinds, ibis and pelican, fish in the shallows, or with the sea-gulls wheel in dense masses in the air, for this is a reservation as a breeding-green for wild-fowl, where they are ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... presented three large toes, rounded, and unprovided with claws. These animals were all herbivorous. Amongst an immense number of others are found many new reptiles, some of them adapted for fresh water; species of birds allied to the sea-lark, curlew, quail, buzzard, owl, and pelican; species allied to the dormouse and squirrel; also the opossum and racoon; and species allied to ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers



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



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com