THE STORKS 143 



built on the top of buildings and barns in Holland 

 or Germany to encourage the bird to come and 

 nest. The Stork and the Swallow know their 

 seasons, and people love to have these messengers 

 of the coming summer make their home with 

 them ; and in many places there are traditions of 

 the same site having been used by them for nesting 

 in for hundreds of years. Of all this side of their 

 life, however, those seen in Egypt show nothing, 

 as nearly all that come are simply migrating still 

 farther south. A very few do remain throughout 

 the winter in one or two exceptionally favoured 

 feeding - grounds ; Lake Menzaleh, for instance, 

 with its great area of shallow water teeming with 

 fish and aquatic insect life, is a favourite haunt. 

 The profusion of life in every pool and puddle 

 throughout Egypt is really astonishing. I have 

 seen isolated spaces hardly exceeding a couple of 

 square yards absolutely teeming and heaving with 

 innumerable beetles and larvse of flies and insects. 

 I can also recall one little pool in the centre of 

 one of the many small nameless islands in Lake 

 Menzaleh : when I approached it, from its glitter- 

 ing whiteness I took it to be one of those salt- 

 covered basins that are everywhere, but when I 

 looked close the whole floor of what had been a 



