The Poet delights to tell of self-sacrificing love; and hence the celebrity which the PELICAN has acquired for the strong natural affection which impels it, so the tale runs, to pour forth the very fountain of its life in nourishment to its young. From Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in the island of Cyprus, whose _Physiologvs_ was printed by Plantin in 1588, we have the supposed natural history of the Pelicans and their young, which he symbolizes in the Saviour. His account is accompanied by a pictorial representation, “ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΠΕΛΕΚΑΝΟΣ,”—_Concerning the Pelican_ (p. 30). [Illustration: _Epiphanius, 1588._] The good bishop narrates as physiological history the following,— “Beyond all birds the Pelican is fond of her young. The female sits on the nest, guarding her offspring, and cherishes and caresses them and wounds them with loving; and pierces their sides and they die. After three days the male pelican comes and finds them dead, and very much his heart is pained. Driven by grief he smites his own side, and as he stands over the wounds of the dead young ones, the blood trickles down, and thus are they made alive again.” Reusner and Camerarius both adopt the Pelican as the emblem of a good king who devotes himself to the people’s welfare. _For Law and for Flock_, is the very appropriate motto they prefix; Camerarius simply saying (ed. 1596, p. 87),— “_Sanguine vivificat Pelicanus pignora, sic rex Pro populi vitæ est prodigus ipse suæ._” “By blood the Pelican his young revives; and so a king For his people’s sake himself of life is prodigal.” Reusner (bk. ii. p. 73) gives the following device,— Pro lege, & grege. _EMBLEMA XIV._ [Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._] And tells how,— “Alphonsus the wise and good king of Naples, with his own honoured hand painted a Pelican which with its sharp beak was laying open its breast so as with its own blood to save the lives of its young. Thus for people, for law, it is right that a king should die and by his own death restore life to the nations. As by his own death Christ did restore life to the just, and with life peace and righteousness.” He adds this personification of the Pelican,— “For people and for sanctioned law heart’s life a king will pour; So from this blood of mine do I life to my young restore.” The other motto, which Hadrian Junius and Geffrey Whitney select, opens out another idea, _Quod in te est, prome_,—“Bring forth what is in thee.” It suggests that of the soul’s wealth we should impart to others. Junius (Emb. 7) thus addresses the bird he has chosen,— “By often striking, O Pelican, thou layest open the deep recesses of thy breast and givest life to thy offspring. Search into thine own mind (my friend), seek what is hidden within, and bring forth into the light the seeds of thine inner powers.”