THE STORK. 



177 



ences ; and its true distinctions are to be taken 

 rather from its manners than its form. The 

 crane has a loud piercing voice ; the stork is 

 silent, and produces no other noise than the 

 clacking of its under-chap against the upper: 

 the crane has a strange convolution ot the 

 wind-pipe through the breast-bone; the stork's 

 is formed in the usual manner : the crane feeds 

 mostly upon vegetables and grain ; the stork 

 preys entirely upon frogs, fishes, birds, and 

 serpents : the crane avoids towns and popu- 

 lous places ; the stork lives always in or near 

 them : the crane lays but two eggs ; and the 

 stork generally four. These are distinctions 

 fully sufficient to mark the species, notwith- 

 standing the similitude of their form. 



Storks are birds of passage, like the former; 

 but it is hard to say whence they come, or 

 whither they go. When they withdraw from 

 Europe, they all assemble on a particular day, 

 and never leave one of their company behind 

 them. They take their flight in the night ; 

 which is the reason the way they go has never 

 been observed. They generally return into 

 Europe in the middle of March, and make 

 their nests on the tops of chimneys and houses, 

 as well as of high trees. The females lay 

 from two to four eggs, of the size and colour 

 of those of geese ; and the male and female 



the feathers are of a deep glossy black, intermingled 

 with varying shades and reflections of violet and green, 

 which becomes more strongly marked on the back and 

 wings. Those of the whole under surface from the bot- 

 tom of the neck to the base of the tail are white. The 

 tail itself is black. The wings are extremely long, and 

 so powerful as to raise the bird, in its flights and migra- 

 tions, to such a height in the air as to be almost invisi- 

 ble to the human eye. Like the foregoing species, the 

 black stork is a migratory bird, seeking the more southern 

 parts of Europe during the inclemency of winter. In the 

 spring it advances to a much higher latitude than the 

 white, visiting even Russia and Siberia, and passing 

 over Sweden towards the north in considerable num- 

 bers. But it seldom comes so far westward as the 

 other, being almost unknown in Holland, although 

 common in the eastern departments of France and 

 throughout the whole of Germany. A solitary instance 

 of its occurrence in Great Britain fell under the 

 notice of the late Colonel Montagu, and forms the 

 subject of an interesting paper in the twelfth volume 

 of the Linnean Transactions. The character of the 

 black stork is in one respect diametrically opposed to 

 that of the white. Instead of domesticating itself as it 

 were with man, it shuns his society and makes its tem- 

 porary dwelling in the most secluded spots, frequenting 

 impenetrable morasses or the banks of such rivers and 

 lakes as are seldom disturbed by the presence of in- 

 truders, and building its nest on the summits of the 

 loftiest pines. Its food is exactly similar to that of its 

 more social fellow; and their manners, except in this 

 peculiar sullenness on the part of the black stork, closely 

 correspond. It submits itself with perfect resignation 

 to captivity, never using its powerful bill as a weapon 

 of offence against its companions. It appears to have no 

 other voice than the clattering sound which it produces 

 by the snapping of its mandibles. Zoological Society 

 Gardens. 



sit upon them by turns. They are a month 

 in hatching ; and when their young are ex- 

 cluded, they are particularly solicitous for 

 their safety. 



As the food of these birds consists, in a 

 great measure, of frogs and serpents, it is not 

 to be wondered at that different nations have 

 paid them a particular veneration. The Dutch 

 are very solicitous for the preservation of the 

 stork in every part of their republic. This 

 bird seems to have taken refuge among their 

 towns ; and builds on the tops of their houses 

 without any molestation. There it is seen 

 resting familiarly in the streets, and protected 

 as well by the laws as the prejudices of the 

 people. They have even got an opinion that 

 it will only live in a republic ; and that story 

 of its filial piety, first falsely propagated of 

 the crane, has, in part, been ascribed to the 

 stork. But it is not in republics alone that the 

 stork is seen to reside, as there are few towns 

 on the continent, in low marshy situations, 

 but have the stork as an inmate among them; 

 as well the despotic princes of Germany, as 

 the little republics of Italy. 1 



The stork seems a general favourite even 

 among the moderns ; but with the ancient 

 Egyptians their regard was carried even to 

 adoration. This enlightened people, who wor- 

 shipped the Deity in his creatures, paid di- 

 vine honours to the ibis, as is universally 

 known. It has been usually supposed that 

 the ancient ibis is the same with that which 



1 In Bagdad, and some other of the more remote cities 

 of Asiatic Turkey, the nests of storks present a very re- 

 markable appearance. The minors, or towers of the 

 mosques, at Constantinople, and most other parts of Tur- 

 key, are tall, round pillars, surmounted by a very pointed 

 cone; but at Bagdad, the absence of this cone enables 

 these birds to build their nests upon the summit ; and as 

 the diameter of the nest generally corresponds with that 

 of the minar, it appears as a part of it, and a regular ter- 

 mination to it. The curious effect is not a little in- 

 creased by the appearance of the bird itself in the nest, 

 which thus, as part of the body and its long neck are 

 seen above the edge, appears the crowning object of the 

 pillar. The Turks hold the bird in more than even the 

 usual esteem, which may be partly attributed to its ges- 

 ticulations, which they suppose to resemble some of their 

 own attitudes of devotion. Their name for the stork is 

 Hadji Lug -lug : the former word, which is the honorary title 

 of a pilgrim, it owes to its annual migrations, and its ap- 

 parent attachment to their sacred edifices. The latter 

 portion of the denomination, "lug-lug," is an attempt 

 to imitate the noise which the bird makes. The regard 

 of the Turks is so far understood and returned by the in- 

 telligent stork, that, in cities of mixed population, it 

 rarely or never builds its nest on any other than a Tur- 

 kish house. The Rev. J. Hartley, in his " Researches 

 in Greece and the Levant," remarks : "The Greeks 

 have carried their antipathy to the Turks to such a pitch, 

 that they have destroyed all the storks in the country. 

 On inquiring the reason, I was informed ' The stork is 

 a Turkish bird : it never used to build its nest on the 

 house of a Greek, but always on that of a Turk !' The 

 tenderness which the Turks display towards the feathered 

 tribe is indeed a pleasing trait in their character." 



