24 LEAVES EROM THE 



migration wlien lie was at Abydos, in the montli of 

 August. Tliey came from tlie north, and when they 

 arrived at the Mediterranean Sea they wheeled round 

 and round, then broke into companies, and proceeded no 

 longer in one body. Dr. Shaw, in his journey over 

 Mount Carmel, saw them coming from Egypt in flocks 

 extending half-a-mile in breadth, each of which occupied 

 three hours in passing over. There are stories of their 

 being heralded in their flights by crows, who lead the 

 way ; others, again, say that a deadly enmity exists 

 between the two races, and that stout battles have been 

 witnessed between the storks and crows in Eg3rpt. 



The advent of the crows is announced by their cries, 

 but the stork utters no vocal sound. This silence probably 

 gave rise to the notion entertained by the ancients that 

 the storks had no tongue. Their ordinary mode of com- 

 munication is by clattering the mandibles like a pair of 

 castanets. 



This peculiarity was known to the ancients. 



Ipsa sibi plaudat crepitante ciconia rostro, 



writes Ovid (Metam. vi. 97), and Dante refers to it in his 

 description of the agonies of the guilty in the place of 

 weeping and gnashing of teeth, — 



Eran rombre dolenti nella ghiaccia ; 

 Mettendo i denti in nota di Cicogna.* 



Laro'e are the assemblies and sonorous the clatterings 

 that precede their autumnal migration. The quaint 

 Philemon Holland thus renders PHny's account of one 

 of these gatherings, and making allowance for the time 

 when the Koman wrote, there is little in it that has not 

 been certified by modern observers : — 



When they be minded (writes the translator of Plinies Naturall 

 Historie) — when they be minded to part out of our coasts, they 

 assemble all together in one certain place appointed : there is not 



* Inferno, canto xxxii. 1. 35, 36. 



