358 HERONS. 



detached trees immediately above human habitations ; but it builds just as 

 often on the roof, or it may be on the chimney, of the cottaf^e itself, where, to 

 facilitate its operations, the peasants not unfrcquently affix a broken cart- 

 wheel. The nest is composed of sticks and similar materials ; and as it is 

 often made use of for several generations, it becomes at length, from annual 

 repairs and additions, of a very goodly size : it is said to be occasionally 



fiG. iSo* — Stokk's Xest. 



from four to six feet in height. Numbers of sparrows usually breed in the 

 sides of these gigantic structures. The stork, according to popular belief, is 

 not unmindful of the kindness shown to it ; and the eggs, or young ones, as 

 the case may be, that are frequently found outside the nest, are considered by 

 the peasants to be tokens of its gratitude. The female lays from four to five 

 oval-shaped eggs, of a dirty white colour ; they are two inches and seven- 

 eighths in length, by two inches in their transverse diameter. 



When the winter sets in, and the morasses and swamps are frozen, so that 

 food is scarcely to be found, the storks assemble in multitudes, and prepare for 

 their southern journey, which, like that of many other birds of passage, is pro- 

 bably begun in the night. 



