LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



LEAVES FROM 



THE NOTE-BOOK 

 RALIST. 



OF A NATU- 



PART III. STORKS. 



IF any philosopher should gird himself to the 

 task of tracing the vagaries of the Transmigrating 

 Ens, as it has been termed, and following the 

 spirit through its various phases, he would have 

 an amusing but a puzzling time of it, even though 

 he took Pythagoras for his guide. And yet that 

 doctrine of the Metempsychosis, founded not improb- 

 ably on the growth, dissolution, and regeneration 

 of animal and vegetable natures, raises thoughts 

 not to be hastily cast away. It mingles with our 

 reasonings, be they grave or gay ; suggests itself 

 to Hamlet when he discourses of imperial Caesar, 

 and to the wag who, after decking the last resting- 



place *f Quin with thyme and 

 breathes the pious aspiration 



pot-marjoram. 



And fat be the gander that feeds on his grave. 



Bodies die but to revive. The carcass, uncon- 

 taminated by medical efforts to cheat the worm, 

 soon swarms with animal life in a different form ; 

 and the decayed vegetable revives in the mucor 

 which bursts from its dead fibres, to say nothing 

 of the hosts of minute insects which live, and 

 move, and have their being upon its remains. 

 And this, be it remembered, is only the first stage 

 patent to all eyes. But who shall say that when 

 the cycle is completed the dead body may not live 

 again as a perfect animal or vegetable, more per- 

 fect than when the sun first shone upon it in its 

 nascent state ? 



In truth, all sublunary nature is apparently so 

 full that one may well understand the notion that 

 the quantity of matter is infinitesimally small and 

 the volume of spirit enormously great. Jupiter, it 

 is said, seeing this, threw down a capacious handful 

 of souls upon this petit tas de boue, and left them 

 to scramble for the few bodies open to them. 



If such tales be true, happy must the struggling 

 soul have been that worked its way into the egg 

 of a stork, that personification of all the virtues. 

 Gratitude, temperance, chastity, piety these were 

 a few of the qualities attributed to the bird by the 

 ancients. Welcome everywhere, and bearing a 

 charmed life, it was and is hailed as the harbinger 

 of spring and the destroyer of evil things. Even 

 the Dutchman grows animated when he sees the 

 stork return to the well-known nest, and expresses 

 his pleasure at beholding the snowy wader stalk 

 about his polders by a reduplication of puffs from 

 his eternal pipe. Nay, he has been known on 

 such an occasion to withdraw the reeking tube 

 from his Jips for a moment, and ask the frogs how 

 they liked their new king? 



The disappearance of the storks in the winter 

 and their reappearance in the spring gave rise to 

 the same tales of brumal hybernation as were long 

 rife about the swallows ; and stories were told of 

 a concatenation of storks, joined head and tail 

 together, having been fished out of the water. 



The Lake of Como, if we recollect right, was one 

 of the hybernacula out of which they were de- 

 clared to have been taken, apparently dead, but 

 revived by the fishermen, who restored animation 

 by placing them in a warm bath. And yet Pliny 

 had no doubt about their migration, and as little 

 that they arrived from a great distance, though he 

 says that in his time it was not known from what 

 country they came or whither they retired. Old 

 Belon, however, well knew that Africa was the 

 locality of their winter quarters; and he gives 

 evidence of their having been seen whitening the 

 plains of Egypt in September and October. The 

 same excellent ornithologist blessings on him for 

 a good observer beheld a large flock of them in 

 the act of migration, when he was at Abydos, in 

 the month of August. They came from the north, 

 and when they arrived at the Mediterranean Sea 

 they wheeled round and round, then broke into 

 companies, and proceeded no longer in one body. 

 Dr. Shaw, in his journey over Mount Carmel, saw 

 them coming from Egypt in flocks extending balf- 

 a-mile in breadth, each of which occupied three 

 hours in passing over. There are stories of their 

 being heralded in their flights by crows, who lead 

 the way ; others, again, say that a deadly enmity 

 exists between the two races, and that stout battles 

 have been witnessed between the storks and crows 

 in Egypt. 



The advent of the crows is announced by their 

 cries, but the stork utters no vocal sound. This 

 silence probably gave rise to the notion entertained 

 by the ancients that the storks had no tongue. 

 Their ordinary mode of communication is by clat- 

 tering the mandibles like a pair of castanets. 



This peculiarity was well known to the ancients. 



Ipsa sibi plaudat crepitante ciconia rostro, 



writes Ovid, (Metam. vi., 97,) and Dante refers to 

 it in his description of the agonies of the guilty in 

 the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth 



Eran 1'ombre dolenti nella ghiaccia ; 

 Mettendo i denti in nota di Cicogna.* 



Large are the assemblies and sonorous the clatter- 

 ings that precede their autumnal migration. The 

 quaint Philemon Holland thus renders Pliny's 

 account of one of these gatherings, and making 

 allowance for the time when the Roman wrote, 

 there is little in it that has not been certified by 

 modern observers : 



When they be minded (writes the translator of 

 Plinies Naturall Historic) wheii they be minded 

 to part out of our coasts, they assemble all togethnr 

 in one certain place appointed : there is not one 

 left out nor absent of their owne kind.unlesse it be 

 some that are not at libertie, but captive or in bond- 

 age. Thus (as if it had been published before by 

 proclamation) they rise all in one entire companie, 

 and away they flie. And albeit well knowne it 

 might be afore that they were upon their remove 

 and departure, yet was there never any man 

 (watched he never so well) that could perceive 

 them in their flight : neither do we at any time see 

 when they are coming to us, before we know that 



* Inferno, canto xxxii., 1. 35, 36. 



