WHITE STORKS (Ciconia alba} ASSEMBLING 

 FOR MIGRATION 



The seasonal Migration of -many birds is a phenomenon familiar 

 to all, and one which, in spite of much research, is still but little 

 understood. Food-supply has no doubt much to do with it, but 

 the reasons for migration are the least mysterious part of the 

 matter. How birds are able to find their way over vast stretches 

 of land and sea to regions suitable for their purposes is at present 

 quite beyond our comprehension. In most cases it appears that 

 the young birds are the first to depart on what must be for them 

 an unknown journey, which greatly adds to the difficulty of the 

 problem to be solved. One of the best-known migratory birds is 

 the White Stork, the rough stick-nests of which are such common 

 objects on roofs and chimneys in Holland, Denmark, and North 

 Germany. The locality-sense is strongly developed, for year after 

 year a nest is tenanted by the same pair of birds. They arrive in 

 spring, leaving again in late summer, by which time the young are 

 well grown. Before their departure they "assemble" in large 

 numbers on the meadows, and fly away in troops, some of which 

 have been estimated to include as many as five thousand indi- 

 viduals. They winter in Africa, some of them getting as far south 

 as Cape Colony. 



