34 LEAVES EEOM THE 



The bird was looked up to by more tlian one pro- 

 fession, the gardener looked at its bill, and named one of 

 his most favourite groups of plants Pelargonium ; the 

 chemist beheld it, and fashioned his retort; and the 

 apothecary took a hint from the practice of the bird 

 about which we care not to be particular, though some will 

 have it that it was the ibis and not the stork which made 

 the suggestion. And here we may observe, that Belon 

 and others are of opinion that our bird is the white ibis 

 of Herodotus {Euterpe, 76) ; but it should be remembered 

 that the modems as well as the delightful Halicarnassian 

 record, and with truth, a white as well as a dark species 

 of ibis; and it is not less true that there is a black as 

 well as a white stork. 



The black stork* is the very opposite to the white 

 species, in manners as well as in colour, flying from the 

 haunts of men as eagerly as they are sought by the 

 latter. The food is nearly the same as that of Ciconia 

 alba, with, however, a greater leaning towards a fish 

 diet. 



Its visits to this country are rare. Colonel Montagu's 

 tame black stork was slightly shot in the wing on Sedge- 

 moor, near the parish of Stoke in Somersetshire, in May, 

 1814. The bone was not broken, and the bird lived in 

 the colonel's possession in good health for more than a 

 year. Like the white stork, it frequently rested upon 

 one leg; and if alarmed, particularly by the approach of 

 a dog, it made a considerable noise by reiterated snapping 

 of the bill, similar to that species. It soon became docile, 

 and would follow its feeder for a favourite morsel — an 

 eel. When very hungry it crouched, restmg the whole 

 length of the legs upon the ground, and seemed to sup- 

 plicate for food by nodding its head, flapping its wings, 

 and forcibly expelling the air from the lungs with audible 



* Ciconia nigra. 



