The pelican belongs to the order Steganopodes, family Pelicanide, to which the cormorant also belongs. Two species are found in Palestine and Syria — Pelecanus onicrotalus, L., the roseate or white pelican; and P. crispus, Brush, the Dal- matian pelican. Both have white plumage, the former with a roseate tinge. The legs of the former are greenish-black, the poash yellow, and irides crimson; of the latter the legs and pouch are flesh colour, and irides greyish-white. They are 5-6 feet long from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail. The bill is from 16-18 inches long. Under the lower mandible is a pouch which will hold several gallons. In this pouch it stores food for itself and its young. Pelicans are abundant in the swamps of the Jordan Valley and the Orontes, and seen frequently in other regions of Palestine and Syria. Their breeding-places are in the remotest parts of the swamps. The attitude of the pelican when at rest is singularly listless and melancholy. It leans its head against its breast and stands motionless until hunger compels it to activity. It then flies 30-40 feet above the sur- face of the water, turns its head with one eye downwards, and, when it sees a fish sufficiently near the surface, swoops down upon it, and rarely fails to seize it. It immediately stores it away in its pouch, and proceeds to fish for more until its receptacle is full. It often fishes as far as twenty miles out at sea. It then not ἘΠ ue retires inland to a lonely spot, and sits in the melancholy attitude above described until it has digested its enormous meal. This is the Psalmist’s sad ‘ pelican of the wilderness.’ The pelican is called Υ the Arabs ’abu jerdb=‘the father of a pouch,’ and haugal=‘a pouch,’ and in Egypt bega.
G. E. Post.
PELISHTIM.—RVm of Gn 10“=PHILISTINES (which see).
PELONITE, THE (°$$57; in 1 Ch 11” Β ὁ Φελωνεί, A ὁ Φαλλωνί; in v.*% Β ὁ Φεδωνεί, A ὁ Φελλωνί ; in 1 ΟἹ 27" B A ὁ ἐκ Φαλλού:).---Τ wo οὗ David’s heroes are thus described (1 Ch 117-*), viz. Helez and Ahijah. In 2S 23% the former is called ‘the Paltite,’ and, though the LXX A in that passage agrees with the reading of the Chronicler, it is probable that the MT has preserved the better text. This view is confirmed by the fact that, in the case of the second hero, the reading of 1 Ch 1135 (ng y55n) is clearly a mutilation of the fuller text preserved in ὦ Καὶ 23% (ban Sonny 13 oy>x ‘ Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite’). e must therefore read ‘ Helez the Paltite’ in 1 Ch 1177 27”: the addition ‘ of the children of Ephraim’ (0758 3379 27°) not improbably conceals the gentilic name.
J. Ε΄ STENNING. PEN.—See WRITING.
PENCIL occurs only once in the Bible, Is 44% (RV). The first four clauses of this verse, which describes the making of an idol, read in MT er WIND) ARN niyspes wey: Tys wy 72 7p} ΟὟ ; the
PENDANT
LXX has ἐκλεξάμενος τέκτων ξύλον ἔστησεν αὐτὸ ἐν μέτρῳ, καὶ ἐν κόλλῃ ἐρύθμισεν αὐτό, which, as Cheyne points out, implies a reading ny2 wan Ἢ van ἽΠΞ ywrxn’ nyxpo3); RV ‘The carpenter stretcheth out a line (AV ‘his rule’), he marketh it out with a pencil (AV ‘line’), he shapeth (AV ‘fitteth’) it with planes, and he marketh it out with the com- passes’ (AV ‘compass’). In the first clause RV ‘line,’ ¢.e. measuring line, is decidedly to be pre- ferred to AV ‘rule’ as the tr. of ἢ (cf. 2 K 21%, Is 2817 344, Jer 3159, Zec 1", and see art. LINE). The meaning of the word τὴν in the second clause is quite uncertain. It is a dx. λεγ., and quite possibly a corrupt reading. hens (SBOT, ‘Isaiah,’ p. 137) thinks the final 7 is doubtful, and he suggests Gompecing the Aram. root ».0=J/ineavit) that we should read oy (with the meaning ‘ stylus’), although he notes that this word in Lv 19° means 8 cutting in the flesh. Griitz boldly reads 815. P. Haupt, in an editorial note in SBOT, ad loc., thinks that »nne3 ‘ with the compass’ (he prefers the sing.) should be read after 13, and taken as an explanatory gloss of the latter. If sered= ‘compass,’ he suggests a connexion with the Assyr.
sirdu, ‘yoke.’ e Babylonian use of compasses is described by him in a note in ‘ Ezekiel’ (SBO7),
Ρ. 100f. Other explanations come nearer the RV pencil,’ e.g. ‘red chalk’ (Kimchi, Vitr. ; cf. RVm ‘red ochre’), Reissstift (Siegfried-Stade, Dillmann-
Kittel, and V. hee (Nowack, LeArb. der Heb. Arch. i. 246). J. A. SELBIE.
PENDANT occurs twice in the Bible, but both times RV only. The first instance is Jg 8%, where the word (Heb. nip}, LXX B στραγγαλίδες, AV ‘collars’) is used of one of the ornaments worn by the Midianites who were conquered and spoiled
Gideon ; the other is Is 3 (Heb. nipy;, LXX κάθεμα, AV ‘chains’) in a list of articles of female attire. In both passages the reference appears to be to oar ἄτομα (so Cheyne, ‘Isaiah,’ in BB), the Heb. nétiphéth being, perhaps, equivalent to Arab. natafat, a small clear pear! resembling a drop of water, or a bead of gold or silver of a spheri or elongated form, fastened to the lobe of the ear. See Moore, Judges, ad loc. J. A. SELBIE.