WHITE STORK. 557 



trees in the immediate neighbourhood of the most frequent- 

 ed place. It stalks about in perfect confidence along the 

 busy streets and markets of the most crowded towns, and 

 seeks its food on the banks of rivers, or in fens, in the 

 vicinity of its abode. Storks devour indiscriminately small 

 mammalia, reptiles, fishes, the young of water-fowl, aquatic 

 insects, and worms. The Stork generally lays three or four 

 eggs, which are white, slightly tinged with buff colour, of a 

 short oval form, about two inches ten lines in length, by one 

 inch eleven lines in breadth. After a month's incubation, 

 Mr. Selby says, the young are hatched, and, with great 

 care, attended and watched alternately by the parents until 

 fully fledged and able to provide for themselves. The old 

 birds feed their young by inserting their own beak within 

 the mandibles of the young bird, and passing from their 

 own stomach the half digested remains of their last meal. 



Their affection for their young, as observed by Mr. 

 Bennett, is one of the most remarkable traits in their cha- 

 racter : it is only necessary to mention the history of the 

 female, which, at the conflagration of Delft, after repeated 

 and unsuccessful attempts to carry off her young, chose 

 rather to remain and perish with them in the general ruin, 

 than to leave them to their fate. 



The adult bird has the beak red ; the bare skin around 

 the eye black ; the irides brown ; the whole of the plumage 

 white, except the greater wing-coverts, the primary quill- 

 feathers, secondaries, and tertials, which are black ; legs 

 and toes red ; the claws brown. The whole length three 

 feet six or eight inches. From the carpal joint to the end 

 of the primaries, twenty-three inches. Young birds have 

 the quill-feathers dull black ; the beak and legs dark 

 brownish red. 



