WHITE STORK. 589 



them on the tops of the houses ; and in several continental 

 cities, he considers himself a fortunate man whose roof the 

 Stork selects for its periodical resting-place. Its nest, 

 formed of a mass of sticks, and other coarse materials, is on 

 some part of the house-top, or a tall chimney, a steeple, or 

 an old tower, and sometimes on the summits of the loftiest 

 trees in the immediate neighbourhood of the most fre- 

 quented place. It stalks about in perfect confidence along 

 the busy streets and markets of the most crowded towns, 

 and seeks its food on the banks of rivers, or in fens, in the 

 vicinity of its abode. Storks devour indiscriminately small 

 mammalia, reptiles, fishes, the young of water-fowl, aquatic 

 insects, and worms. The Stork generally lays three or four 

 eggs, which are white, slightly tinged with buff colour, of 

 a short oval form, about two inches ten lines in length, by 

 one inch eleven lines in breadth. After a month's incuba- 

 tion, Mr. Selby says, the young are hatched, and, with 

 great care, attended and watched alternately by the parents 

 until fully fledged and able to provide for themselves. 

 The old birds feed their young by inserting their own 

 beak within the mandibles of the young bird, and passing 

 from their own stomach the half-digested remains of their 

 last meal. 



Their affection for their young, as observed by Mr. 

 Bennett, is one of the most remarkable traits in their cha- 

 racter : it is only necessary to mention the history of the 

 female, which, at the conflagration of Delft, after repeated 

 and unsuccessful attempts to carry off her young, chose 

 rather to remain and perish with them in the general ruin, 

 than to leave them to their fate. 



The adult bird has the beak red ; the bare skin around 

 the eye black ; the irides brown ; the whole of the plumage 

 white, except the greater wing-coverts, the primary quill- 



