Craw-fowle – Pelikan – Grand Gosier
Craw-Fowl
There is in all these Islands a large Bird which lives only
on fish: it is about the bigness of a great Duck, and the
feathers are of an Ash-colour, and hideous to the eye : it hath
a long and flat beak, a great head, small eyes deep set in his
head, and a neck short enough, under which hangs a kind of
craw or bag so big that it may contain a great pale of water:
From which description we may call him the Craw-Fowl as the
French have properly termed him, Grand-gosier : These Birds
are commonly found upon Trees on the Seaside, where they
lye in ambush to discover their prey ; for as soon as they per-
ceive a fish, as it were between wind and water, so as that they
have them at advantages, they fall upon it, and seise it : they
will swallow down great fishes whole : they are also so atten-
tive on their fishing, that having their eye continually fixt on
the Sea whence they expect: their prey, they are easily shot,
and become it themfelves to others : they are a stupid and me-
lancholy kind of Bird, fuitably to their employment : they
are so excellently well sighted, that they discover fish at a great
distance in the Sea, and above a fathom under water , but they
stay till they become up almost even with it before they offer
at them : their flesh is not to be eaten.
