210 EUROPEAN WADERS. 



European Waders are very numerous, as might be ex- 

 pected in a region abounding in pools, marshes, and moist 

 woodlands. Among these we may mention snipes, wood- 

 cocks, plovers, and curlews. In several parts of Temperate 

 Europe herons still build their nests in the trees, or 

 wander solitarily by the sides of the sequestered mere. 

 Two species of ibis, as well as several cranes and storks, are 

 European; and in the south-eastern parts a species of 

 flamingo is met with, but it never strays into the western 

 lands. The stork is very plentiful in Holland. Need we 

 describe it? Does not every reader know its quaint 

 peculiar figure, its long and rather thick neck, its un- 

 gainly body, its long bill, its slender stilt-like legs, mth 

 their comparatively short toes terminating in curved and 

 obtuse claws ? All hail to it as one of the most useful of 

 Nature's scavengers ! It is an omnivorous bird ; a bird 

 with a hearty and indiscriminating appetite; devouring 

 dead animals and any kind of garbage as freely as fishes, 

 frogs, lizards, and the like. 



It is curious to observe that from a very early date this 

 useful bird has been held in high esteem. Its Hebrew 

 name signifies "benevolent" or "pious;" and both the 

 Greeks and Romans adopted the stork as their emblem of 

 conjugal devotion, gi-atitude, and chastity. The ancients 

 cherished some " fond and foolish " ideas respecting its 

 filial afiection; how that the young birds, when their 

 parents grew old and unable to feed themselves, brought 

 them food, and tended them wdth the utmost affection, 

 even taking them on their backs, and indulging them with 

 an occasional aerial journey. Hence the law, ascribed to 



