NOTE -BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 27 



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 reme- 

 dies, and when the cure was completed, gave it its 

 liberty. Away it flew ; and as she watched its departm'e 

 with a sigh, she was again left alone with her grief 



The next year, as she was sitting at the door of the 

 tomb, Avith 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 recognised her 

 patient ; and now it gently hovered over her, dropped 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 proceeding 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 ^lian, here is 

 ' Another Account,' as the best possible public instruc- 

 tors 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 

 recognised 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. 



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