NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 25 



one left out nor absent of their owne kind, unlesse it be some that 

 are not at Ubertie, but captive or in bondage. Thus (as if it had 

 been pubUshed before by proclamation) they rise all in one entire 

 companie, and away they flie. And albeit well knowne it might 

 be afore that they were upon their remove and departure, yet was 

 there never any man (watched he never so well) that could per- 

 ceive them in their flight : neither do we at any time see when 

 they are coming to us, before we know that they be alreadie come. 

 The reason is because they doe the one and the other alwaies by 

 night. And notwithstanding that they flie too and fro fi'om place 

 to place and make but one flight of it, yet be they supposed never 

 to have arrived at any coast but in the night. There is a place in 

 the open plaines and champion countrey of Asia, called Pithonos- 

 Come : where (by report) they assemble all together, and being 

 met, keep a jangling one with another : but in the end, look which 

 of them lagged behind and came tardie, him they teare in peeces, 

 and then they depart. This also hath been noted, that after the 

 Ides of August they be not lightly scene there. 



Some affirme constantly that storkes have no tongues. But so 

 highly regarded they are for slaying of serpents, that in Thessalie 

 it is accounted a capitall crime to kill a storke, and by law he is 

 punished as a fellon in the case of manslaughter. 



In Oppian's time the knowledge of the whereabout of 

 the storks had somewhat advanced, for he speaks of 

 accounts of some flying from Lycia, and others from 

 Ethiopia. But however doubtful the ancients may have 

 been as to the place where these birds passed the winter, 

 none but those who delighted in marvels rather than 

 facts discredited their migration. Long before the time 

 of Pliny and Oppian it had been written, — 'Even the 

 storke in the aire knoweth her appointed times, and the 

 turtle and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time 

 of their comming.'* 



Turn we now to the romantic hisioiy of the white 

 stork. Laomedon's lovely daughter, Priam's charming 

 sister, who shone among mortal virgins like the moon 

 amidst the stars, vaunted in her pride that she was more 



* Jerem. viii. 1 . ' Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, 

 Printer to the King's most Excellent Maiestle, 1615.' 



C 



