believed, into the northern parts of Germany and France; but the possibility of such wanderers having escaped from confinement is always to be regarded,[1] since few zoological gardens are without examples which are often in the finest condition. Its usual haunts are the shallow margins of the larger lakes and rivers, where fishes are plentiful, since it requires for its sustenance a vast supply of them, pursuing them under water, and rising to the surface to swallow those that it has captured in its capacious pouch. The nest is formed among the reeds that border the waters it frequents, placed on the ground and lined with grass. Therein two eggs, with white, chalky shells, are commonly laid. The young during the first twelvemonth are of a greyish-brown, but this dress is slowly superseded by the growth of white feathers, until when mature almost the whole plumage, except the black primaries, is white, deeply suffused by a rich blush of rose or salmon-colour, passing into yellow on the crest and lower part of the neck in front. A second and somewhat larger species, Pelecanus crispus, also inhabits Europe, but in smaller numbers. This, when adult, is readily distinguishable from the ordinary bird by the absence of the blush from its plumage, and by the curled feathers that project from and overhang each side of the head, which with some differences of coloration of the bill, pouch, bare skin round the eyes, and irides give it a wholly distinct expression.[2] Two specimens of the humerus of as many Pelicans have been found in the English fens (Ibis, 1868, p. 363; Proc. Zool. Society, 1871, p. 702), thus proving the former existence of the bird in England at no very distant period, and one of them being that of a young example points to its having been bred in this country. It is possible from their large size that they belonged to P. crispus. Ornithologists have been much divided in opinion as to the number of living species of the genus Pelecanus (cf. op. cit., 1868, p. 264; 1869, p. 571; 1871, p. 631)—the estimate varying from six to ten or eleven; but the former is the number recognized by the latest author on the subject, M. Dubois (Bull. Mus. de Belgique, 1883). North America has one, P. erythrorhynchus, very similar to P. onocrotalus both in appearance and habits, but remarkable for a triangular, compressed, horny excrescence which is developed on the ridge of the male's bill in the breeding season, and, as ascertained by Mr Ridgway (Ibis, 1869, p. 350), falls off without leaving trace of its existence when that is over. Australia has P. conspicillatus, easily distinguished by its black tail and wing-coverts. Of more marine habit are P. philippensis and P. fuscus, the former having a wide range in Southern Asia, and, it is said, reaching Madagascar, and the latter common on the coasts of the warmer parts of both North and South America.
The genus Pelecanus as instituted by Linnæus included the Cormorant (vol. vi. p. 407) and Gannet (vol. x. p. 70) as well as the true Pelicans, and for a long while these and some other distinct groups, as the Snake-birds (q.v.), Frigate-birds (vol. ix. p. 786), and Tropic-birds (q.v.), which have all the four toes of the foot connected by a web, were regarded as forming a single Family, Pelecanidæ; but this name has now been restricted to the Pelicans only, though all are still usually associated under the name Steganopodes (Ornithology, p. 46). It may be necessary to state that there is no foundation for the venerable legend of the Pelican feeding her young with blood from her own breast, which has given it an important place in ecclesiastical heraldry, except that, as Mr Bartlett has suggested (Proc. Zool. Society, 1869, p. 146), the curious bloody secretion ejected from the mouth of the Flamingo may have given rise to the belief, through that bird having been mistaken for the "Pelican of the wilderness." (a. n.)
PELIGNI. See ITALY, vol. xiii. p. 444.
PÉLISSIER, Jean Jacques Amable (1794-1864), duke of Malakhoff, marshal of France, was born 6th November 1794 at Maromme (Seine Inferieure), where his father was employed in a powder-magazine. After attend ing the military college of La Fleche and the special school of St Cyr, he in 1815 entered the army as sub-lieutenant in an artillery regiment. A brilliant examination in 1819 secured his promotion to the staff. He served as aide-de-camp in the Spanish campaign of 1823, and in the expedition to the Morea in 1828-29, at the conclusion of which he received the grand cross. In 1830 he took part in an expedition to Algeria, and on his return was promoted to the rank of major. Nine years later he was again sent to Algeria as chief of the staff with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and remained there in active service till the Crimean war, taking a prominent part in many important operations, and, by gradual promotion, advancing to the rank of general of division. The merciless severity of his conduct in suffocating a whole Arab tribe in a cavern, where they had taken refuge and refused to surrender, awakened in 1846 such a strong feeling of indignation in Europe that Marshal Soult, the French minister of war, expressed in the chambers his regret at its occurrence; but Marshal Bugeaud, the governor -general of Algeria, not only gave it his approval but shortly afterwards secured for Pelissier further promotion. On the declaration of war with Russia Pelissier was sent to the Crimea, where on 16th May 1855 he succeeded Marshal Canrobert as commander-in-chief of the French forces before Sebastopol. After the capture of the fortress he was, on the 12th September, promoted to be marshal. On his return to Paris he was named senator, created duke of Malakhoff (22d July 1856), and rewarded with a grant of 100,000 francs per annum. From March 1858 to May 1859 he acted as French ambassador in London, whence he was recalled to take command of the army of observation on the Rhine. In 1860 he was appointed governor -general of Algeria; and he died there 22d May 1864.
See Algeria (vol. i. pp. 568, 569); Marbaud, Le Maréchal Pélissier, 1863; Castille, Portraits Historiques, 2d series, 1859.
PELL, John (1610-1685),
mathematician, was born on 1st March 1610 at Southwick in Sussex, where his father was minister. He was educated at the free school of Steyning, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen. During his university career he made him self an accomplished linguist, and even before he took his M.A. degree (in 1630) he was engaged in learned correspondence with Briggs and other mathematicians. His great reputation and the influence of Sir William Boswell, the English resident, with the States -General procured his election in 1643 to the chair of mathematics in Amsterdam, whence he removed in 1646, on the invitation of the prince of Orange, to Breda, where he remained till 1652. }} From 1654 to 1658 Pell acted as Cromwell's political agent to the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. On his return to England he took orders and was appointed by Charles II. to the rectory of Fobbing in Essex, and in 1673 he was presented by Bishop Sheldon to the rectory of Laindon in the same county. His devotion to mathematical science seems to have interfered alike with his advancement in the church and with the proper management of his private affairs. Cheated, it is said, by his tenants and relations, he was reduced to the utmost
- ↑ This caution was not neglected by the prudent, even so long ago as Sir Thomas Browne's days; for he, recording the occurrence of a Pelican in Norfolk, was careful to notice that about the same time one of the Pelicans kept by the king (Charles II.) in St James's Park had been lost.
- ↑ It is also said to have twenty-two rectrices, while the ordinary species has only eighteen.
