320 STOKKS AND FLAMINGOES. 



neck, and her head adorned with two white tufts of plumes, the 

 " Lady of Numidia," selects for her dwelling-place the eastern and 

 western shores of the African Continent. 



The Stork (Ciconia} is a cosmopolitan bird which alternately 

 favours with his presence the North of Europe and the Torrid Zone, 

 everywhere discharging with fidelity his useful sanitary mission by 

 destroying myriads of noxious vermin. To kill them was considered 

 by the ancients a foul crime, which could only be fitly punished by 

 death, and the Egyptians included the Stork with the Ibis in their alle- 

 gorical and mysterious worship. In his migrations he avoids the two 

 extremes of heat and cold, never going farther north than Russia, 

 nor, in winter, further south than the land of the Nile. The White 

 Stork (Ciconia alba) is upwards of three feet six inches long. One 

 species, popularly known as the Marabout, never quits Africa and 

 the Indies. The name is also applied to the light silken feathers 

 which embellish the wings of the species one of the ugliest, let me 

 add, created by Nature, with his bald head and neck, his huge beak, 

 and absurdly meditative postures. 



The chief of the birds of the shore and river-bank, the Flamingo 

 (Phoenicopterus), may merit admiration on account of his dazzling 

 scarlet plumage and handsome bearing. Owing to the great length 

 of his legs and neck he stands nearly five feet high, and measures 

 six feet from the point of the beak to the tip of the claws. The 

 small round head is furnished with a bill nearly seven inches long, 

 which is higher than it is wide, light and hollow, having a membrane 

 at the base, and suddenly curving downwards from the middle. The 

 legs and thighs are singularly delicate and slender. The Flamingoes 

 are timid and suspicious birds; they keep together when feeding, 

 drawn up in artificial array like the lines of a battalion of British 

 infantry, with some of their number planted as sentinels to give 

 notice of the approach of danger. Their voice has a peculiarly deep 

 trumpet-like sound. At the note of alarm they all take to flight, 

 swooping through the air in the form of a triangle. 



