20 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



The feathers of the lower part of the neck are long, 

 pendulous, and pointed. There is little distinction in 

 any of these particulars between the male and the 

 female ; but the young have a browner tinge in their 

 wings, and their bills are of a duskier red. 



These birds have in all ages been regarded with 

 peculiar favour, amounting, in some countries, almost 

 to veneration, partly on account of the services which 

 they perform in the destruction of noxious animals, and 

 in removing impurities from the surface of the earth, 

 and partly on account of the mildness of their temper, 

 the harmlessness of their habits, and the moral virtues 

 with which the imagination has delighted to invest 

 them. Among the ancient Egyptians the Stork was 

 regarded with a reverence inferior only to that which, 

 for similar causes, was paid to the sacred Ibis, consi- 

 dered, and with some show of reason, as one of the 

 tutelary divinities of the land. The same feeling is still 

 prevalent in many parts of Africa and the East ; and 

 even in Switzerland and in Holland something like 

 superstition seems to mingle, in the minds of the 

 common people, with the hospitable kindness which a 

 strong conviction of its utility disposes them to evince 

 towards this favourite bird. In the latter country more 

 particularly, the protection which is accorded to it is 

 no more than it fairly deserves as the unconscious 

 instrument by which the dykes and marshes are re- 

 lieved from a large portion of the enormous quantity 

 of reptiles engendered by the humidity and fertility of 

 the soil. 



On the other hand the White Stork appears to 

 be influenced by the same friendly feelings towards 

 man. Undismayed by his presence, it builds its nest 

 upon the house-top, or on the summits of the loftiest 

 trees in the inniiediate neiaiibourhood of the most 



