136 THE STORK. 



were never erected on a Christian roof. In the 

 Turkish quarters they were met in all directions, 

 strutting about most familiarly, mixing with the 

 people in the streets, but rarely entering the parts of 

 the town inhabited by the Greeks or Armenians, by 

 whom, possibly, they may be occasionally disturbed. 

 Nothing can be more interesting than the view of an 

 assemblage of their nests. Divided as they always 

 are, into pairs, sometimes only the long elastic neck 

 of one of them is to be seen peering from its cradle 

 of nestlings, the mate standing by on one of his 

 long slim legs, and watching with every sign of the 

 closest affection. "While other couples, on the ad- 

 jacent walls, are fondly entwining their pliant necks, 

 and mixing their long bills, the one sometimes 

 bending her neck over her back, and burying her 

 bill in the soft plumage, while her companion clack- 

 ing his long beak with a peculiar sharp and mono- 

 tonous sound, raises her head and embraces it with 

 a quivering delight; while from the holes and cran- 

 nies of the walls, below the Stork's n^st^ thousands 

 of little blue Turtle-Doves flit in all directions, 

 keeping up an incessant cooing by day and night. 



At another Mohammedan town, Fez, on the coast 

 of Barbary, there is a rich hospital, expressly built, 

 and supported by large funds, for the sole purpose of 

 assisting and nursing sick Cranes and Storks, and of 

 burying them when dead ! This respect arises from 

 a strange belief, handed down from time imme- 

 morial, that the Storks are human beings in that 

 form, men from some distant islands, who, at certain 

 seasons of the year, assume the shape of these birds, 

 that they may visit Barbary, and return at a fixed 



