PELICAN
[Heb., qa·ʼathʹ].
The Hebrew name of this bird is generally understood to mean “the vomiter” (Heb qohʼ, “to vomit”). The translators of the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate versions identified the Hebrew word with the “pelican.” It is listed among the birds designated as ‘unclean’ in the Mosaic law.—Lev. 11:13, 18; Deut. 14:11, 12, 17.
The pelican’s most distinctive feature is the large elastic pouch extending beneath its long beak. Concerning this, Volume Nine of The Smithsonian Series (p. 99) reports: “The great pouch under the bill, incidentally and contrary to popular belief, is used only as a seine or net to capture food and not as a carrying basket.” In The Animal Kingdom (Vol. II, pp. 913, 914), Dean Amadon and E. Thomas Gilliard, Associate Curators of Birds, of the American Museum of Natural History, report: “The pelican plunges with open bill into a school of small fish. The pouch serves as a scoop, taking in the fish and often several quarts of water as well. When the bird comes to the surface the water runs out the sides of the bill and the fish are gulped down. They are never stored in the pouch.” On the other hand, both these publications show that the pelican feeds its young by regurgitating partly digested food from its stomach, even bringing up whole small fishes when the young birds have attained sufficient size. The parent bird opens its beak and allows the young to poke into the vast throat, prodding for the regurgitated food. Thus, the Hebrew name aptly fits the pelican.
The pelican is one of the largest of all birds, attaining a size of some five feet (1.5 meters) in length and with a majestic wingspread of as much as eight feet (2.4 meters) or more. The yellowish beak is long and hooked, and the pouch beneath is scarcely noticeable when empty. Ponderous on land, the pelicans are strong, graceful fliers and have been known to have their nesting places as much as sixty miles (96.5 kilometers) from the places of their fishing. They are superb fishers and their webbed feet enable them to maneuver swiftly in the water.
When the pelican is gorged with food, it often flies away to a lonely place, where it takes a melancholy posture, with its head sunk on its shoulders, so motionless that it might be mistaken from a distance for a white stone. The bird assumes this attitude for hours at a time, thus befitting the melancholy inactivity to which the psalmist David refers when he illustrates the poignancy of his grief by writing that “I do resemble the pelican of the wilderness.” (Ps. 102:6) Here “wilderness” does not necessarily connote a desert, but simply an area away from human habitations, perhaps a swamp. During certain seasons, swamps in the northern Jordan valley are still the home of pelicans.
Thus the pelican shows a distinct preference for uncultivated places, where it will not be disturbed by man. There it nests and hatches its young and retires after fishing. Because of this fondness for lonely, desolate places, the Bible uses this bird as a symbol of utter desolation. To symbolize Edom’s coming desolation, Isaiah foretold that the pelican would take possession of that land. (Isa. 34:11) Zephaniah prophesied that pelicans would dwell among the pillar capitals of Nineveh, indicating total ruin and absence of humankind.—Zeph. 2:13, 14.