308 HISTORY OF 



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 any molesta- 

 tion. 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 repub- 

 lics of Italy. 



The stork seems a general favourite even 

 among the moderns ; but with the ancient Egyp- 

 tians 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 cur- 

 lew, all over black, with a bill very thick in the 

 beginning, but ending in a point for the better 

 seizing its prey, which is caterpillars, locusts, and 

 serpents. But however useful the modern ibis 



