STOMA'S 



3 11 



nest contains from three to five pure white, or yellowish white eggs, which are 

 incubated by the female alone, who is provided with food by her mate during the 

 whole period. After the young are hatched, one of the parents always remains 

 with the nest while the other is away. It is over a month before the young 

 are able to stand, and quite two before they are strong enough to quit the nest. 

 At first the old birds transfer some of their own half-digested food into the beaks 

 of their progeny, so that the latter have only to swallow the nutriment. Later 

 on the food is placed in the 

 nest, and later still on its edge. 

 The young are fed at first 

 on worms and insects ; but in 

 time they get frogs, fishes, 

 birds, and small mammals, 

 and even snakes, which the 

 stork eats after first break- 

 ing their heads and then their 

 spines with its beak. At the 

 end of July the storks pre- 

 pare for migration by wander- 

 ing about for some time in 

 the neighbourhood of their 

 nesting-place and then assem- 

 bling in the meadows in large 

 flocks until the end of August, 

 when they leave for the winter 

 in flocks of from five to five 

 thousand at a time. In some 

 of the villages in Poland 

 almost every house has its 

 stork's nest. 



At all times a stately 

 bird, particularly when on the 

 wing, the stork flies with its 

 neck and legs stretched out : 

 when about to fly, it first of 

 all takes a few short jumps, 

 and then rises in the air, where 

 it finally glides on without 



visible movement of its wings. In spring the male and female often soar to great 

 heights, flying in spiral lines across one another. Even during pairing-time storks 

 seem to have no real cry of their own, although the old birds utter a kind of hiss, 

 while the young both hiss and twitter. The absence of a cry is, however, amply 

 compensated by the clapping together of the two halves of the beak, which generally 

 takes place when the stork is standing up with its head bent backwards. This 

 performance is even practised by the young. The sound made by the cocks is 

 louder than that of the females ; it apparently expresses joy, desire, hunger, 



THE WHITE STOBK. 



