4.92 ARDEID.E. 



tower, and sometimes on the summits of the loftiest trees in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of the most frequented places. 

 It stalks about in perfect confidence along the busy streets 

 and markets of the most crowded towns, and seeks its food on 

 the banks of rivers, or in fens, in the vicinity of its abode. 

 Storks devour indiscriminately small mammalia, reptiles, 

 fishes, the young of water-fowl, aquatic insects, and worms. 

 The Stork generally lays three or four eggs, which are white, 

 slightly tinged with buff colour, of a short oval form, about 

 two inches ten lines in length, by one inch eleven lines in 

 breadth. After a month's incubation, Mr. Selby says, the 

 young are hatched, and, with great care, attended and 

 watched alternately by the parents until fully fledged and 

 able to provide for themselves. The old birds feed their 

 young by inserting their own beak within the mandibles of the 

 young bird, and reproducing from their own stomach the half 

 digested remains of their last meal. Their affection for their 

 young, as observed by Mr. Bennett, is one of the most re- 

 markable traits in their character : it is only necessary to 

 mention the history of the female, which, at the conflagration 

 of Delft, after repeated and unsuccessful attempts to carry off 

 her young, chose rather to remain and perish with them in the 

 general ruin, than to leave them to their fate. The White 

 Stork is common in Spain and Turkey. 



The adult bird has the beak red ; the bare skin around 

 the eye black ; the irides brown ; the whole of the plumage 

 white, except the greater Aving-coverts, the primary quill- 

 feathers, secondaries, and tertials, which are black ; legs and 

 toes red ; the claws brown. The whole length three feet six 

 or eight inches. From the carpal joint to the end of the 

 primaries, twenty-three inches. Young birds have the quill- 

 feathers dull black ; the beak and les^s dark brownish red. 



