THE CRANE KIND. 107 



fully sufficient to mark the species, notwithstanding 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 sit upon them by turns. They 

 are a month in hatching ; and when their young are excluded, 

 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 the republic. This bird 

 seems to have taken refuge among their towns ; and builds on the 

 tops of their houses without *ny molestation. There it is seen rest- 

 ing 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. 



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 worshipped the Deity in his creatures, 

 paid divine honours to the Ibis, as is universally known. It has been 

 usually supposed that the ancient Ibis is the same with that which 

 goes at present by the same name ; a bird of the stork kind, of about 

 the size of a curlew, all over black, with a bill very thick in the be- 

 ginning, but ending in a point for the better seizing its prey, which 

 is caterpillars, locusts, and serpents. But, however useful the modern 

 ibis may be in ridding Egypt, where it resides, of the vermin and ven- 

 omous animals that infest it ; yet it is much doubted whether this be 

 the same Ibis to which the ancients paid their adoration. Maillet 

 the French consul at Cairo, observes, that it is very hard to deter 

 mine what bird the ancient Ibis certainly was, because there are 

 cranes, storks, hawks, kites, and falcons, that are all equally enemies 

 to serpents, and devour a vast number. He farther adds, that in the 

 month of May, when the winds begin to blow from the internal parts 

 of Atrica, there are several sorts of birds that come down from Upper- 

 Egypt, from whence they are driven by the rains, in search of a bet- 

 ter habitation, and that it is then they do this country such signal 

 services. Nor does the figure of this bird hieroglyphically represent- 

 ed on their pillars mark it sufficiently to make the distinction. Be- 

 sides, the modern Ibis is not peculiar to Egypt, as it is to be seen but 

 at certain seasons of the year ; whereas we are informed by Pliny 

 that this bird was seen no where else. It is thought, therefore, thai 



