24i LEAVES FROM THE 



migi-atlon when lie was at Abydos, iu tlie month of 

 August. They came from the north, and when they 

 anived at the Mediterranean Sea they wheeled roimd 

 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 Eg}^3t in flocks 

 extending half-a-mile in breadth, each of which occupied 

 thi'ee hoiu's in passing over. There axe 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 Eg-}-]3t. 



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 tongiie. Then- ordinary mode of com- 

 munication is by clattering the mandibles like a pan- of 

 castanets. 



This peculiarity was known to the ancients. 



Ipsa sibi plaiulat creintante ciconia rostro, 



writes Ovid (Metmii. \\. 97), and Dante refers to it in his 

 description of the agonies of the guilty in the place of 

 weeping and gnashing of teeth, — 



Erau Tombre dolenti nella gbiaccia ; 

 Metteudo i deiiti iu nota di Cicogna.* 



Laro-e are the assemblies and sonorous the clatteriucrs 

 . . . •^ 



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 modem observers : — 



AHien they be minded (\M-ites the translator of Plinies Naturall 

 Historie) — when they be minded to part out of our coasts, thev 

 assemble all together in one certain place apjjointed : there is not 



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



