AN OLD-TIME RECORD OF THE WHITE STORK 25 



AN OLD-TIME RECORD OF THE BREEDING OF 

 THE WHITE STORK IN SCOTLAND. 



By William Eagle Clarke. 



Although the Stork is a regular summer visitor to the 

 counties bordering the North Sea opposite to our own 

 shores, yet it does not seem, even in the long past, to have 

 been other than a more or less irregular visitor to the 

 British Islands. Probably it was more frequent in its 

 appearances in the eastern counties in former years, when 

 it was more numerous in its continental haunts than at 

 the present time, but the North Sea seems always to have 

 formed the western limit of its range. 



. Professor Newton, whose knowledge of ornithological 

 literature was in many respects unequalled, remarks {Diction- 

 ary of Birds) that " though often visiting Britain, it has 

 never been a native or even an inhabitant of the country." 



M)' attention, however, was recently drawn to a remark- 

 able record one which has apparently been overlooked 

 by the numerous ornithologists interested in all that concerns 

 our British birds relating to the nesting of a pair of Storks 

 in Scotland in the early years of the fifteenth century. 

 This notable event is recorded in Goodall's edition of the 

 Scotichronicon (vol. ii., book xv., chap, xxiv., p. 449) published 

 in 1759. 



This great historical work was commenced by John 

 Fordum, who died about the year 1384, under the title 

 of Chronica Gentis Scofonun, and was edited and continued 

 by Walter Bower, the Abbot of Inchcolm, as the Scoti- 

 chronicon, the latter author being responsible for all the 

 records subsequent to the 1383. In Bovver's chronicles for 

 the year 1416 it is related that : 



" An. D. millesimo quadringentesimo decimo sexto, obiit 



dominus Jacobus Biset, Prior Sancti Andreae, in crastino 



nafivitatis Sancti Johannis Baptistae. Hoc etiam anno par 



avium ciconiarum venerunt in Scotiam, et super ecclesiam S. 



85 AND 86 D 



