The pelican was thought to feed her young with her own blood, as shown in the copperplate below.
"The Pelican in her Piety"
by
Pieter van der Borcht (1545-1608)
(I've seen many such images, and none of the artists seem to have any notion of what a real pelican looks like, though the idea that a pelican feeds its young by opening her breast to her chicks may be derived from observation of actual pelicans, as seen below.)
