CHAP. viii.J VOICELESSNESS. 343 



feathers, as a child would pull his mother's gown, to 

 lead her out of the way of us suspicious-looking 

 strangers. These occasional touches and pokings which 

 they give each other are, with them, a substitute for 

 the voice, which is wanting. Mr. Swainson too hastily 

 says, " There is (are?) no birds yet discovered which, 

 even so far as they have been observed by man, are 

 altogether silent;" but the Stork is utterly mute; it has 

 no vocal utterance whatever ; the nearest approach to it 

 is a faint sigh if they are roughly treated. Their looks 

 and gestures to each other are, in consequence, more 

 than usually expressive. When they are close together, 

 they make little communications by these crossings and 

 touchings of the bill, which put one in mind of the 

 antennal language of Bees. A clattering of the two 

 mandibles of the bill is used as a more distant signal. 

 The politeness of the husband to the wife, during their 

 joint residence with us, was remarkable in many little 

 things : their lodging at night was in a small house in 

 our court-yard; when they came up at evening from 

 their day's perambulation on the lawn and their fishing 

 in the moat, the male, on their arriving at the gates of 

 the court-yard, would step aside to let the lady enter 

 first, with a perfect gentlemanly air of "After you, 

 Madam," and would then follow her into their chamber, 

 the door of which was immediately closed by the ser- 

 vant for the night. Similar attentions were paid on 

 their exit of a morning for the day's ramble. 



And so they went on happily together, following 

 their natural instincts. In fishing, they did not stand 

 still waiting for their prey to approach them, like the 

 Heron, and some other waders, but proceeded along 

 sounding the mud with their bill in search after eels, 



