3l6 NATUIiAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



themselves at the expense of these birds, and gratify a cruel 

 disposition, sometimes convey hens' eggs into the stork's 

 nest; and when the young are hatched, the cock on seeing 

 them of a different form from his own species, makes a 

 hideous noise, which brings a crowd of other storks about the 

 nest, who to revenge the disgrace which they imagine the 

 hen has brought upon her race, immediately peck her to 

 death. The cock in the meantime makes the heaviest lamen- 

 tation, as if bewailing his misfortune, which obliged him to 

 have recourse to such extreme punishment." 

 A Stork's From the same work we quote the following, 

 Bevenge. which shows that though ordinarily placid and 

 placable the stork can cherish the feeling of revenge. "A 

 wild stork was brought by a farmer in the neighbourhood of 

 Hamburgh, into his poultry yard, to be the companion of a 

 tame one, which he had long kept there ; but the tame stork 

 disliking a rival, fell upon the poor stranger, and beat him 

 so unmercifully that he was compelled to take wing, and with 

 some difficulty escaped. About four months afterwards, how- 

 ever, he returned to the poultry yard, recovered of his wounds, 

 and attended by three other storks, who no sooner alighted, 

 than they all together fell upon the tame stork, and killed it." 

 ORDER IX. This order includes the Goose, the Duck, 

 The Geese, the Swan, the Teal, the Gull, the Petrel, the 

 Albatross, the Cormorant, the Pelican, the Penguin, the 

 Grebe, the Great Auk, the Puffin and other birds. The 

 first of these is found in all parts of the world, geese 

 being especially cultivated in England for the sake of their 

 quills and feathers, and for the purposes of food. The 

 goose, far from being the foolish bird it is popularly esteemed, 

 often shows considerable intelligence, as well as great affection 

 for those who show it kindness. 



The Many instances are recorded of gratitude shown 



O-ratitude of by geese towards those who have befriended 



the Goose, them. Buffon once rescued a young gander from 



