The pelican is the bird which is named porphyrio in Leviticus 11 [11.18] and Deuteronomy 14 [14.17]. It is also a bird living in Egypt, in the desert beside the Nile. In Leviticus, it is numbered among the clean birds according to the Law. There are actually two kinds of this bird, one living in the water, whose food is fish, and the other living on land, loving the wilderness, whose food is venomous animals, such as lizards and the like. Everything the pelican eats, it first dips its foot into the water, and when it has been dipped, it brings [what it is eating] near its mouth, placing it there by using the foot like a hand. Among the birds, apart from the parrot, only the pelican uses its foot in place of a hand.

original latin

De pelicano quoque dicit Glossa super Psalmos. Et idem dicit Plinius per haec verba. Pelicanus, inquit, est avis amator filiorum suorum. Cum enim gignit natos et incipiunt crescere, parentes suos in faciem percutiunt, propter quod ipsos mater repercutit et occidit. Tertio vero die mater se in costa usque ad effusionem sanguinis percutit, et calidum sanguinem super corpora mortuorum filiorum post effundit, et cuius virtute pullus prius mortuus reviviscit. 

Et Glossa super locum illum Psalmi, “Factus sum sicut pelicanus,” etc. pelicanus dicitur rostro occidere pullos, et in triduo lugere, et tunc sanguinem suum super eos fundere, et sic illos vivificare.

Hanc autem naturaliter odit serpens, propter quod serpens, dum pro pastu mater exit, nidum repens per arborem pungit et interficit pullos suos, super quos mater rediens lugere per triduum fertur, deinde in pectore se vulnerat et sanguinem super eos respergens, eas a morte suscitat.

Ex sanguine vero copiosius sic effuso debiliatatur mater, unde et pulli coguntur exire pro cibo, quorum quidam vero degeneres sunt, de matre penitus nullam curam gerunt, quod diligentius advertens mater, receptis viribus filios se pascentes refovet et diligit, alios vero tanquam ignobiles et ingratos a se reiicit, et secum commanere aut vivere non permittit.