336 ANCIENT INSTANCES. ' [CHAP. vin. 



stealthily by night. Its order and punctuality are 

 equally admirable : " The Stork knoweth her appointed 

 time," and keeps to it, and travels in the form of a dis- 

 ciplined army, not of a disorderly rabble. " The 

 Stork," says Plutarch, " though neither sheltered nor 

 fed by us, nor bound by any protection or assistance, 

 still pays a rental for the spot it occupies by destroying 

 the reptiles which are noxious to us." Another author* 

 mentions a payment of a more precious nature. " The 

 Stork returning year by year to the same nest, throws 

 out to the lord of the place one of its young ones ready 

 plucked, by way of tribute ; nay, even it is commonly 

 said, it also makes an offering of a tithe Storkling, 

 satisfying in this manner every just demand, in token 

 of which it refuses both to dwell in and to enter Thu- 

 ringia, where tithes are not paid, as experience teaches." 

 Perhaps they are equally scrupulous about church rates, 

 the shabby resistance to which may have disgusted them 

 with certain localities in England, and rendered their 

 rare visits to this country still fewer and more far 

 between. However, such is the notion ; although it is 

 suspected that the Stork has perhaps tossed out of the 

 nest dead birds that it has been unable to rear. The 

 creature too has its political prejudices, though it ad- 

 heres to them no more firmly than other liberal wan- 

 derers, who are glad of a comfortable home, even within 

 the boundaries of a monarchy. " That Storks are to be 

 found," saith Sir Thomas Browne, " and will only live in 

 Republics or free States, is a pretty conceit to advance 

 the opinion of popular policies, and from Antipathies in 

 nature, to disparage Monarchical Government ; but how 



* De Rerum Natura, quoted by Aldrovandi. 



