52 Mr. A. Haasiier on the 



&' 



III. — 77t-' White Stork hi South Africa. By Alwin 

 Haagner, F.Z.S., Hon. Mem. Royal Hung. Bureau o£ 

 Ornithology; Hon. Sec. S. A. Ornithologists' Union. 



(Reprinted from the ' Aquila' for 1912.) 



At the request of the Director of the Royal Hung. Bureau 

 of Ornitliology. I have written the following brief sketch of 

 tha White Stork in South Africa. I must apologise for its 

 meagreness, but we have to fight against many odds in this 

 country. 



The White Stork was origin illy considered a summer 

 visitor to South Africa and is still such in the main, 

 although during the last two or three years more and more 

 of them have remained throughout the winter. Their move- 

 ments in the country were also at one time guided by the 

 presence of the locusts swarms then devastating the country, 

 and the bird was rightly considered to be one of our chief 

 locust destroyers. During latter years, however, owing to 

 the exertions of the South African Locust Bureau, aided by 

 our many feathered friends, locust swarms have been few 

 and far between, yet the White Stork has arrived and spread 

 over the country just as usual, and the question now before 

 us is, what governs their wanderings at present? * 



Scarcity of food in one place will of course cause them to 

 move on to the next, but why are the flocks found at such 

 large distances from one another? and what is more im- 

 })ortant still, why should a few individuals be found 

 hundreds of miles from the nearest flock ? Another thing 

 which puzzles me is the fact that in several instances the 

 bird *vas reported from a Southern Station first, i. e. that 

 the earliest date for a Stork is from the most Southerly 

 Station. Of course this may arise from the fact of our 

 meagre white population and consetjuent few observers, and 

 that the birds come down the coast and then spread inland 



* Cfr. Sclater, W. L. : " On the Migration of Birds in South Africa," 

 p. 190. 'Journ. of the South African Orn. Union,' No. 1, 1905. Vergl. 

 ' A'^iuila," lOOf', Bd. xri, p. xxvii. 



