532 BRITISH BIRDS. 
the nest the old bird slowly took wing and flew round whilst one of our 
party climbed up. 
The Black Stork does not always breed in trees. Hudleston found it 
breeding in a cleft of the rocks in Bulgaria; and Elwes and Buckley 
observed a pair making their nest in a low rock on the edge of the forest 
in the north of the Dobrudscha. L’Abbé David also says that in China 
it breeds in perpendicular cliffs. 
The eggs of the Black Stork are from three to five in number, and dull 
white in colour, coarse in texture, full of small pores, and with very little 
gloss. They vary in length from 2°8 to 2°45 inch, and in breadth from 
2°05 to 1°85 inch. On an average the eggs of this bird are smaller 
than those of the White Stork, but large eggs of the former equal in 
size small eggs of the latter. They vary considerably in shape, some 
specimens being much rounder than others; they are, however, readily 
distinguished by the green colour of the inside of the shell when held up 
to the light. 
The names applied to the two European Storks are unfortunate. The 
White Stork is not white, neither is the Black Stork black ; but whereas 
in the former species the wings below the shoulders are the only parts which 
are black, in the latter the only white portions are the underparts below the 
long neck-feathers. The rest of the plumage is, however, by no means 
black ; it is metallic blue, green, purple, violet, and almost red as the light 
falls upon it in different directions. The bill, legs, and feet are deep scarlet, 
as in the White Stork, but the bare space round the eye is deep scarlet 
instead of black. The Black Stork is slightly the smaller bird. Young 
in first plumage differ considerably from adults ; the metallic gloss on the 
upper parts is much duller; the feathers of the sides of the head and of the 
neck, and some of the wing-coverts, have rusty white tips, and the bill, legs, 
and feet are olive-brown. Birds of the year are intermediate in plumage. 
(Qe — 
