214 A HARBINGER OF SPRING. 



ing together of the two jaws. The immense number of 

 the birds which thus perform their annual migration may 

 be imagined from a fact related by Dr. Shaw, that he saw 

 three flights of them leaving Egypt and passing over 

 Mount Carmel, each of which was half a mile in breadth. 

 How these birds are able year after year to determine so 

 exactly the period of their departure, which never varies 

 above a day or two, and how they guide themselves 

 through the air for leagues upon leagues, never failing to 

 reach their chosen destination, and returning regularly to 

 the same localities, even to the same nests, are problems 

 which science must confess to be insolvable. We can but 

 say with the prophet, " The stork knoweth her appointed 

 time," — and not only her appointed time, but her ap- 

 pointed jDlace. 



In some parts of Europe the stork, like the swallow in 

 England, is regarded as the sure harbinger of Spring ; and 

 the Hungarian children, on the banks and islands of the 

 Danube, welcome the arrival of the well-known visitors 

 with a kind of carol, — which is curious, we may point out, 

 from its evidence of the traditional and historical hatred 

 of the Hungarian for the Moslem, — 



"stork! stork! poor stork! 

 Why is thy foot so bloody? 

 A Turkish boy hath torn it : 

 Hungarian boy will heal it 

 With fiddle, fife, and drum." 



The poets are close and accurate observers, and we need 

 not be surprised that they have been induced to describe 

 and celebrate movements so remarkable and simificant as 



