38 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



a settled but acquired habit of its life to seek the neighbourhood and the association 

 of the human species, civilised or savage ; and the house-top forms, indeed, now 

 as much one of the bird's habitual nesting places, as the hedgerow does the 

 Blackbird's. 



The Stork is called in Dutch " Ooijevaar." The derivation of this word can, 

 as Professor Newton states in his valuable " Dictiona^," be traced to an old word 

 signifying " Bringer of Good." It is this wide-spread belief in the luck-bringing 

 influence of its presence, that the Danes and Germans hold the bird in such 

 regard, even veneration, and so sacredly preserve its home from spoliation, and 

 itself from harm. The bird's selection of a newly erected house for its own 

 domicile, is an omen that brings profound happiness to the owner, especially if it 

 has chosen the site of its own nnwooed accord. Such hints and enticements as 

 the erection of an old cart wheel, or a platform, to serve as basis for its nest, are 

 constantly offered to the Storks by those whose abodes have been passed over by 

 the " Bringer of Good," to induce them to build, if not on, yet within the precincts 

 of their dwelling. So anxious, indeed, are the people to have a Stork's nest on 

 their houses, that knowing its almost invariable habit of returning, season after 

 season, to its own nest, they will often purchase, at considerable cost, a nest on 

 a neighbour's house, and transfer it to their own. This ruse is not seldom 

 successful in enticing the Stork to follow the nest-heap gathered by itself. The 

 popular belief instilled into all children in Germany, Holland, and Denmark, is 

 probably too well known to require stating, that the Stork is the winged and 

 heavenly carrier, which brings from the fountain all the new babies. Natural 

 wells were widely esteemed as sacred places ; and this explains why so many 

 churches and sacred edifices, in all parts of the world, have been erected near or 

 over such spots. The same mythological idea that each new sun was born from 

 the previous night, appears in the Stork's return from its annual winter absence 

 bringing with it the fresh life of spring, and in the idea of its bringing new 

 children from the wells. This new child was supposed to be born only at the 

 moment when the Stork dropped it from its beak into the expectant mother's lap. 

 We find in " Notes and Queries," that at the birth of a child it used to be customary 

 to give a sugar-tongs as a christening gift, in shape representing a Stork standing 

 upright upon the claws which partly form the handle. When opened for the 

 purpose of grasping the sugar, the body, which is hollow, disclosed the image of 

 a baby, in swaddling clothes. 



Occasionally an egg or a young bird is cast out of the nest by the Storks, 

 and this is popularly believed to be thrown down as rent. The first year they 

 say a feather is paid, the second an egg, and the third a young bird. It is also 



