NON-IXDICENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 195 



Family CICONIIDi-E. Genus Ciconia. 



WHITE STORK. 



Ciconia alba, Brissoii. 



(British : Rare abnormal spring and autumn migrant.) 



Single Brooded. Laying season, March to May according to 



locality. 



Breeding area : Western Palaearctic region. The 

 White Stork breeds in Southern Sweden, in Denmark, 

 Holland, Germany, and the Spanish peninsula. It also 

 breeds in Austria, the Danubian provinces, Turkey, 

 Greece, and throughout Russia as far north as the Baltic 

 provinces ; in the Caucasus, Armenia, Asia Minor, 

 Palestine, Persia, and Turkestan, as far east as Yarkand. 

 South of the Mediterranean it breeds commonly in 

 North-west Africa from Morocco to Tunis. 



Breeding habits: The White Stork throughout 

 its vast breeding area is a migrant, arriving at its more 

 southerly nesting places in March, but a month or more 

 later at its northern ones. The arrival of the Stork in 

 countries where the bird is common, is looked for as 

 eagerly as the appearance of the Cuckoo and the 

 Swallow in our own. It is a homely species, tame 

 and confiding, because left unmolested, and breeding 

 commonly in villages and towns, or near farmsteads. 

 Indeed, in many localities a platform is erected for its 

 accommodation by the farmer or the villager. In some 

 places the White Stork is gregarious and breeds in 

 colonies, as I remarked in Algeria, but in others it only 

 occurs in scattered pairs. A village will frequently 

 contain from six to a dozen nests, and in Algeria, in 

 Batna, I counted several from the window of my hotel. 

 The White Stork pairs for life, and returns each season 



