Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/94

84 the calms, which at this period of the year are generally experienced everal degrees further to the outh, before one arrives at the track of the regular winds.

The bird known among ornithologits by the name of pelecanus aquilus excited our admiration. We oberved two of them who, whilt they hovered at an immene height, epied their prey in the water, expecting the moment when it hould appear near enough to the urface for them to dart down and eize it.

The reaon why thee birds hover at uch a prodigious height above the ocean, is, undoubtedly, that they may take in a more extenive view of its urface; but it is atonihing that they are able at that ditance to perceive the mall fihes upon which they generally feed. It is a ubject well worthy to be invetigated by natural philoophers, whether this piercing viion depends more upon the enibility of the retina, or (as I rather uppoe it does), upon the dipoition of the humours of their eye.

The pelican is known to be a great detroyer of the flying-fih. As oon as it epies one of thee fihes, it decends from the more elevated regions of the atmophere, and remains hovering about fifty toies above the urface of the water, in order to eize its prey whenever it quits the ea. All