390 BLACK STORK. 
and is even said to visit Madeira. Eastward it breeds in Palestine, 
and can be traced—through Persia, Turkestan, Siberia up to 55° N. 
lat., and Mongolia—to China, where it nests on cliffs in the moun- 
tains near Pekin ; while flocks winter in India as far south as the 
Deccan. It is found throughout Northern Africa, from Morocco 
to Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia; and appears to be generally 
distributed during our cold season down to Cape Colony. 
Unlike the White Stork, which frequents the society of man, the 
Black Stork has its breeding-haunts in the most secluded spots, and 
generally in marshy woods, where it builds its nest in high trees. 
Mr. H. J. Elwes has described one in Jutland as a large and heavy 
mass of sticks, lined with tufts of green moss, and situated about 
thirty-five feet from the ground, in a good-sized beech ; another 
was on an old nest of the White-tailed Eagle, in a smaller tree 
overlooking a wide swampy valley in the forest ; and the late Mr. 
Seebohm found similar structures in oaks and firs. In Spain, 
Bulgaria and Turkey, clefts and ledges of cliffs are also used. The 
4-5 eggs are coarse in texture and of a dull greyish-white colour, 
while, when the shell is held up to the light the lining membrane 
shows green, whereas it is yellowish in the egg of the White Stork ; 
the dimensions also are smaller, being about 2°6 by 2 in. Themale 
stands by the female whilst she is sitting, and little fear of intruders 
is shown. Incubation commences in the latter half of April, and, 
as a rule, the Black Stork arrives at its northern breeding-stations 
rather earlier than its congener; while it leaves later in the autumn, 
and has once been obtained in Sweden in winter. Its food consists 
largely of fish; but frogs, reptiles, small mammals, and aquatic 
insects are also eaten. The young utter a peculiar guttural note ; 
the adults, however, merely make a clattering noise with their 
bills. The illustration was taken from a bird which lived in the 
gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent’s Park for about 
thirty years. 
The adult has the head, neck, upper breast and mantle glossy 
black, with blue, purple, copper-coloured and green reflexions ; under 
parts below the breast white ; bill, orbits, pouch, legs and feet coral- 
red. Length 38 in.; wing 21 in. The sexes are alike in plumage. 
In the young bird the upper feathers are dull metallic-brown, 
margined with dirty-white; and the bill and legs are olive-green, 
afterwards turning to orange-red. 
The Storks, Ibises, and Spoonbills have no powder-down tracts. 
