BLACK STORK. 227 



been killed between July and the Sth of September, 1883, 

 near Kainham in Essex (Zool. 1884, p. 429). 



There is no record of the occurrence of the Black Stork in 

 Scotland ; and as regards Ireland, the only evidence is the 

 statement of Giraldus Cambrensis (1183-86), who says, in 

 his ' Topographia Hibernica,' — " Ciconise vero per totam 

 insulam rarissimae sunt illse nigrae." 



The Black Stork is only a straggler to Norway ; but it 

 breeds sparingly in the forests of the south of Sweden ; 

 Denmark ; Brunswick, Hanover, Pomerania, and some other 

 parts of Germany ; Poland ; Central and Southern Russia ; 

 the Danubian provinces ; and Turkey. It also nests in 

 Spain ; and is said to visit Madeira. In the rest of Europe 

 it occurs as a migrant. To the eastward, it is known to 

 breed in Palestine, and it can be traced through Persia, 

 Turkestan, Siberia up to 55° N. lat., and MongoHa, to China, 

 where, according to Swinhoe, it nests on the cliffs of the 

 mountains near Pekin ; and it winters as far south as 

 Central India. It is found throughout Northern Africa, 

 from Morocco to Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia ; and it 

 appears to be generally distributed throughout that continent 

 down to Cape Colony. 



The character of the Black Stork, as observed by many 

 ornithologists, is in one respect diametrically opposed to 

 that of the White Stork. Instead of domesticating itself, 

 as it were, with man, it shuns his society, and makes its 

 temporary dwelling in the most secluded spots, frequenting 

 impenetrable morasses, or the banks of such rivers and lakes 

 as are seldom disturbed by the presence of intruders, and 

 building its nest on forest trees. Mr. H. J. Elwes, who 

 visited four out of the ten or twelve nests which still exist 

 in Jutland, describes one as a large and heavy mass of 

 sticks, about four feet in diameter, lined with tufts of green 

 moss, so as to form a shallow depression about two feet 

 across, situated about thirty-five feet from the ground, in a 

 good-sized beech-tree. Another was on an old nest of the 

 White-tailed Eagle, in a small beech, overlooking a wide 

 marshy valley in the forest (Ibis, 1880, p. 389). Mr. See- 



