# ON THE FISH-EATING BIRD

Similar to the Pelican

There is a bird with an exotic appetite called the *Tlauhquechul*, which sustains itself only on live fish, for it will not touch those that are dead. It resembles the Spoonbill, or rather the Pelican—specifically the *Onocrotalus*—but it is distinguished by a scarlet and most beautiful color across nearly its entire body. Its beak is wide and rounded toward the tip and ash-colored; it has black pupils, red irises, and a forehead like that of a peacock. Its head is almost bare of feathers and, like the entire neck and part of the breast, is whitish in color, with a broad black band marking the division between the head and the neck. It lives along the seacoasts and the banks of rivers.

Since we have happened upon the subject of the *Onocrotalus*, or Pelican, we felt it appropriate to examine the anatomy and skeleton of the bird here and to provide an illustration for inspection, as it was not depicted in its proper place in the third volume of our *Ornithology*.