roof, for a nest site. For centuries the stork has been celebrated in the literature and 

 legend of Europe, and storks are protected not only by law but by the even more 

 influential force of public opinion. 



In the summer, in Europe, the storks seek their food, chiefly of frogs, in grassy fields 

 and marshes, and are found singly or in small parties. But in the stork's winter home in 

 Africa it masses into great flocks, sometimes following the swarms of locusts on which it 

 then feeds and which give it locally the name of "locust-bird." Storks banded in 

 Europe have been recovered in Africa. In South Africa, when the great flocks take off" 

 on their northward flight to Europe, a few weak individuals are sometimes left behind 

 and stay there for the southern vs'inter. Presumably it is these that have given rise to 

 the belief that the storks nest both in Europe and in South Africa, but Austin Roberts, 

 a student of South African birds, says definitely that they do not breed there. 



The group shows a scene at sunrise in a little rural community near Krzemieniec, in 

 southeastern Poland. In the foreground is the thatched roof-top of a cottage supporting 

 a stork's nest containing two young storks. One of the parents stands on the nest offer- 

 ing a frog to the youngsters; the other parent solemnly stands near-by, sentinel-like. 

 In the painted background are a number of cottages (one of which supports an addi- 

 tional stork's nest), and a church of the Greek Orthodo.x faith, with its characteristic 

 steeple and Byzantine cupola. The rising sun, a golden half-disk on the horizon, casts a 

 rosy glow over the scene. Although no people are about because of the early hour, 

 wisps of smoke from the cottage chimneys forecast the day's activities. In the distant 

 background are meadows and fields of grain, for in this part of Poland the farmers of 

 a district gather in little communities for companionship, the cottages being placed 

 close together while the tilled fields surround the village. At one side of a winding 

 road is a shrine, without which no Polish village would be complete. 



:54] 



