LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



they be alrcadie come. The reason is because they 

 doe the one and the other alwaies by night. And 

 notwithstanding that they flie too and fro from 

 place to place and make but one flight of it, yet be 

 they supposed never to have arrived at any coast 

 but in the night. There is a place in the open 

 plaines and champion countrey of Asia, called 

 Pithonos-Come : where (by report) they assemble 

 all together, and being met, keep a jangling one 

 with another ; but in the end, look which of them 

 lagged behind and came tardie, him they teare in 

 peeces, and then they depart. This also hath been 

 noted, that after the Ides of August they be not 

 lightly seene there. 



Some affirme constantly that storkes have no 

 tongues. But so highly regarded they are for 

 slaying of serpents, that in Thessalie it is accounted 

 a capitall crime to kill a storke, and by law he is 

 punished as a fellon in the case of manslaughter. 



In Oppian's time the knowledge of the where- 

 about of the storks had somewhat advanced, for 

 he speaks of accounts of some flying from Lycia, 

 and others from Ethiopia. But however doubtful 

 the ancients may have been as to the place where 

 these birds passed the winter, none but those who 

 delighted in marvels rather than facts discredited 

 their migration. Long before tho time of Pliny 

 and Oppian it had been written " Even the 

 storke in the aire knoweth her appointed times, 

 and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, 

 observe the time of their comming."* 



Turn we now to the romantic history of the 

 white stork. Laomedon's lovely daughter, Pri- 

 am's charming sister, who shone among mortal 

 virgins like the moon amidst the stars, vaunted in 

 her pride that she was more beautiful than the 

 queen of heaven. Juno, who was not remarkable 

 for patience under such insults, uttered the fiat of 

 degradation ; and poor Antigone found her deli- 

 cate nose and exquisite mouth elongate into a red 

 horny beak, and her fair body stilted up on two 

 lofty skinny red legs, with nothing but the flat- 

 tened nails at the end of her attenuated toes, to 

 remind her of limbs cast in the most perfect femi- 

 nine mould. This form of the nails did not 

 escape Willughby, who says, writing of the bird 

 " Its claws are broad, like the nails of a man ; so 

 that 7tluTv<ut*vxos will not be sufficient to differ- 

 ence a man from a stork with its feathers pluckt 

 off." Poor Antigone ! Instead of a king's 

 board graced with every delicacy, her table was 

 to be thereafter spread in the wilderness. But 

 the irritable and jealous goddess seems to have 

 had some touch of mercy ; for, according to the 

 legends, she left the transformed all her virtues 

 and amiable qualities when she punished her inso- 

 lence. Gratitude, temperance, chastity, piety, 

 were some of the bright spots left to console her 

 for her otherwise dark lot ; and they have, it 

 would seem, adorned the species ever since. 



Of the gratitude of storks, there are stories 

 enough to fill a volume. They were said, on 

 their annual return to their nests on the house- 



*Jerem. viii. 7. "Imprinted at London by Robert 

 Barker, Printer to the King's most Excellent Maiestie] 

 16.5." 



tops, regularly to throw down to their landlord 

 one of their young ones by way of rent or tribute 

 an act of justice executed a little at the expense 

 of their parental character. Well, if you are not 

 inclined to believe this, best of readers, listen to 

 the story of Heracleis of Tarentum, the good, the 

 chaste, the pious Heracleis. She, when the 

 angel of death smote her beloved husband, wept 

 long and sorely, but not like her of Ephesus. 

 No, she could no longer endure the sight of the 

 empty chair and the widowed couch, but set up 

 her abode at her husband's tomb. Here, as she 

 sat in her sorrow on a lovely summer's day, when 

 all was smiling but the dejected widow, she be- 

 held a pair of storks teaching their young ones to 

 fly. A weakling of infirm wings fell to the 

 ground and broke its leg. Heracleis had suffered 

 too much herself not to feel compassion for the 

 suffering of other creatures ; so she cherished the 

 young bird, bound up its wounds, applied healing 

 remedies, and when the cure was completed, gave 

 it its liberty. Away it flew ; and as she watched 

 its departure with a sigh, she was again left alone 

 with her grief. 



The next year, as she was sitting at the door 

 of the tomb, with her pale features and mourning 

 robe, bathed in the beams of a vernal sun, she 

 beheld at a distance a stork skimming low along 

 the ground towards her. On came the bird : as 

 it approached she recognized her patient ; and 

 now it gently hovered over her, dropt from its 

 beak a stone into her lap, and departed. The 

 poor widow wondered what this might mean ; but 

 struck with the action, she took the stone in and 

 laid it down. At night the place shone as if 

 illuminated by torches, the radiant effulgence pro 

 ceeding from the precious gem brighter than 

 that mountain of light, the koh-i-noor diamond 

 which the stork had brought from distant lands to 

 his benefactress. 



Stuff, sir ! 



Well, madam, if you will not believe -^Elian 

 here is, " Another Account," as the best possible 

 public instructors say. 



A good-for-nothing fellow threw a stone at a 

 stork and broke its leg. The poor stork got to 

 its nest, and there lay. The women of the house 

 fed it, set its leg, and cured it, so that it was able 

 at the proper season to fly away with the rest. 

 Next spring, the bird, which was recognized by 

 the women from the kink in its gait, as the sailors 

 say, returned, and when they, attracted by its 

 gesticulations, approached, dropped gratefully at 

 their feet from its bill the finest diamond it had 

 been able to pick up in its travels. 



Then there was the ancient stork, that had 

 nested for I don't know how many years on one 

 particular house. This well-bred bird never re- 

 turned in the spring without stalking about before 

 the door, and clattering his bill till the master 

 came out, when stork clattered more than ever, as 

 much as to say " The top of the morning to 

 you, sir ; here I am again." To which the mas- 

 ter would reply " Ah ! old fellow, how are 



