314 HISTORY OF 



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 with- 

 draw 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 chim- 

 neys 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 

 their republic. This bird seems to have taken refuge among 

 their towns ; and builds on the tops of their houses without any 

 molestation. There it is seen resting familiarly in the streets, 

 and protected as well by the laws as the prejudices of the peo- 

 ple. 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 beginning, 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 venomous 



