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Bible Dictionaries
Pelican
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Pelican. Heb. the vomiter. A voracious water-bird, unclean by the Levitical law. Leviticus 11:18, of singular construction and habits, resembling the goose, though nearly twice as large. Its bill is 15 inches long. The female has a large pouch or bag capable of containing two or three gallons of water, and food enough for six common men. Out of this pouch she feeds herself and her young, and from this habit and the red nail at the end of her bill came the notion that she fed her offspring on her own blood. The pelican was formerly more abundant than now in the East. Having gorged itself with fish, this bird flies miles into the wilderness, where it sits in some lonely place "for hours, or even days, with. Its bill resting on its breast, a picture of melancholy." Psalms 102:6. The R. V. and the margin of the A. V. read "pelican" for "cormorant" in Isaiah 34:11; Zephaniah 2:14.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Pelican'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/p/pelican.html. 1893.
