2702 Birds. 



in obscurity. We shall now be able to record it, and, if it lives, with many advan- 

 tages. * * * 



"G. Montagu. 



" To Robt. Anstice, Esq." 



" Bridgwater, June 18, 1814. 



" Dear Sir, 



" I assure you such were the docility and appearance of superior intellect in 

 my friend Stork, during his stay with us, that 1 had no small struggle with my 

 feelings on parting with him, especially on so perilous a journey, considering the con- 

 finement necessary for the poor fellow, whose length of limb I was much afraid would 

 make a close package very uncomfortable at the least. I am therefore delighted in 

 no common degree, and equally obliged by your early information, of his safe arrival 

 at Knowle, and that he proved to be the rara avis you suspected him to be : pleased, 

 therefore, as I should have been to have retained him, I am much more so to have 

 placed him in your hands. * * * I wish to lose no time in answering your in- 

 quiries, as far as my information goes. * * * Some small soles were offered it, 

 but they were refused ; however the next morning they had disappeared. Some eels 

 were put before him during the day, and the temptation was too great for him to re- 

 sist: he immediately swallowed them in my presence. 



" I got a friend to take a likeness of Mr. Stork on Monday, and really he stood 

 for his picture as composedly and steadily as most gentlemen sit for theirs, and looked 

 as if he perfectly understood what was going on. * * * 



" His manners indicate him to be in some degree domesticated ; but his plumage 

 is, I think, too perfect for a bird which had been long under confinement. * * * 



" Robt. Anstice." 

 " To Geo. Montagu, Esq." 



" Knowle, June 25, 1846. 

 " My Dear Sir, 



« * * * Our friend Stork is well, become quite tame, and comes to the 

 call when hungry. It is evidently beginning to moult, by the apparent increase of 

 dark glossy green feathers on the back. * * * I have by degrees induced it to 

 eat flesh, so I have no fears of its starving. Frogs, its natural food, are as scarce in 

 Devonshire (at least in this part), as toads, it is seldom I see either. * * * 



" G. Montagu." 

 " To Robt. Anstice, Esq." 



" Knowle, September 11, 1814. 

 " My Dear Sir, 



« * * * Y our old friend, the stork, is in perfect health, and quite docile, 

 consequently developing much more of its habits : unfortunately a frog in this county 

 is nearly as rare an animal as himself, which I am sorry for, as I have no doubt — by 

 his manner of searching in the grass — that those Amphibia constitute a great portion 

 of its food. * * * He has been moulting slowly all the summer, and is not nearly 

 completed now : as far therefore as I perceive the whole upper part of his plumage 



