CHAP, vi.] GIGANTIC CRANES. 315 



domesticable, and therefore, to us, most interesting of 

 its order; although, when we recollect, there are 

 several of its near relations that are extremely familiar 

 and submit readily to captivity, besides others that are 

 less closely allied, the Ibis, the Curlew, the Lapwing 

 the Oyster- Catcher, Ruffs and Reeves, &c. Buffon, 

 whose accounts of the habits of birds are much more 

 valuable than his ideas of their mutual relations, re- 

 marks that "the Black and the White Stork are 

 exactly of the same form, and have no external differ- 

 ence but that of colour. This distinction might be 

 totally disregarded, were not their instincts and habits 

 widely different. The Black Stork prefers desert tracts, 

 perches on trees, haunts unfrequented marshes, and 

 breeds in the heart of forests. The White Stork, on 

 the contrary, settles beside our dwellings ; inhabits 

 towers, chimneys, and ruins : the friend of man, it 

 shares his habitations, and even his domain ; it fishes 

 in our rivers, pursues its prey into our gardens, takes 

 up its abode in the midst of cities, without being dis- 

 turbed by the noise and bustle, and, ever respected and 

 welcomed, it repays by its services the favours bestowed 

 upon it ; as it is more civilized, it is also more prolific, 

 more numerous, more dispersed, than the Black Stork, 

 which appears confined to particular countries, and re- 

 sides always in the most sequestered spots." 



Everybody will remember the gigantic Grallatores 

 of India the Marabous, &c., which are almost as much 

 at home in human society as dogs and horses, fulfilling 

 their office of living muck-carts of all sorts of offal. 

 English residents have been said to exert upon them 

 that habit of mischief which phrenologists affirm to 

 be a peculiar manifestation of destructiveness, by 



