310 THE STORK. 



observed. It is satisfactory thus to strengthen the authority 

 of a Scriptural passage from so distant a source', though amply 

 borne out by witnesses in the very country in which the pro- 

 phet dwelt. 



"In the middle of April," says a traveller* in the Holy 

 Land, "while our ship was riding at anchor under Mount 

 Carmel, we saw three nights of these birds, each of which 

 took up more than three hours in passing us, extending itself, 

 at the same time, more than half a mile in breadth." They 

 were then leaving Egypt, and steering towards the north-east 

 of Palestine, where it seems, from the account of another eye- 

 witness, they abound in the month of May. " Returning from 

 Cana to Nazareth," he observes, "I saw the fields so filled 

 with flocks of Storks, that they appeared quite while with 

 them ; and when they rose and hovered in the air, they seemed 

 like clouds." The respect paid in former times to these birds 

 is still shown ; for the Turks, notwithstanding their reckless- 

 ness in shedding human blocd, have a more than ordinary 

 regard for Storks, looking upon them with an almost reveren- 

 tial affection. 



In the neighbourhood of Smyrna, and indeed throughout 

 the whole of the Ottoman dominions, wherever the bird abides 

 during his summer visits, it is welcomed. They call him their 

 friend and their brother, the friend and brother exclusively of 

 the Moslem race, entertaining a belief that wherever the influ- 

 ence of their religion prevailed, he would still bear them com- 

 pany, and it might seem that these sagacious birds are well 

 aware of this predilection ; for, singularly enough, a recent 

 traveller,! who met with them in incredible numbers in Asia 

 Minor, observed that, although they built on the mosques, 

 minarets, and Turkish houses, their nests were never erected 

 on a Christian roof. In the Turkish quarters they were met 

 in all directions, strutting about most familiarly, mixing with 

 the people in the streets, but rarely entering the parts of the 

 town inhabited by the Greeks or Armenians, by whom possibly 

 they may be occasionally disturbed. Nothing can be more 

 interesting than the view of an assemblage of their nests. 

 * Chardin. t MACFAKLANE'S Constantinople. 



