Pelican
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Pelican. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
any bird of the genus Pelecanus, and especially the common pelican, the onocrotalos of the Greeks and Romans, and the Pelecanus onocrotalus of modern science. Pelicans are large piscivorous water fowl, with an enormous pouch capable of being contracted when not in use as a depository for food. The species are widely distributed, and frequent the shores of the sea, rivers, and lakes, feeding chiefly on fish, which they hunt in shallow water, the pelican of the United States (P. fuscus) being the only species which dives for its prey. The common pelican is about the size of a swan, though its enormous bill and loose plumage make it look considerably larger; it is white, slightly tinged with flesh color, and the breast feathers become yellow in old birds. It usually nests on the ground, in some retired spot near the water, and lays two or three white eggs. The pelican sits during the night with its bill resting on its breast; and, as the hook at the extremity of the bill is red, this may have given rise to the legend that the bird feeds its young with blood from its own breast. In chemistry, an alembic with a tubu- PELICAN lated capital, from which two opposite and crooked beaks passed out, entering again at the belly of the cucurbit. In dental surgery, an instrument for extracting teeth, curved at the end like the beak of a pelican. In art, the pelican is the symbol of charity. It is generally represented wounding its breast to feed its young with its own blood-a tale told in the fabulous natural history of the Middle Ages, and which made the bird Ages, the adopted symbol of the Redeemer.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a family of maritime and fresh water fish-pursuing birds. They nest and feed in colonies. The white pelican breeds from Minnesota northward and winters on the Gulf. It is magnificent bird, sixty inches in length, with black wing coverts and white, snowy plumage. Unlike the cormorant the pelican is fond of shallow water. A minnow or fish is caught, tossed into the air, and caught again head first, when it slips into a deep pouch under the lower mandible. This pouch serves to carry fish to the nest or on a journey. It is a place of storage,--not a crop as many have thought. See Cormorant