WHITE STORKS (Ciconta alba) ASSEMBLING 
FOR MIGRATION 
The seasonal Migration of ‘many birds is a phenomenon familiar 
to all, and one which, in spite of much research, is still but little 
understood. Food-supply has no doubt much to do with it, but 
the reasons for migration are the least mysterious part of the 
matter. How birds are able to find their way over vast stretches 
of land and sea to regions suitable for their purposes is at present 
quite beyond our comprehension. In most cases it appears that 
the young birds are the first to depart on what must be for them 
an unknown journey, which greatly adds to the difficulty of the 
problem to be solved. One of the best-known migratory birds is 
the White Stoxk, the rough stick-nests of which are such common 
objects on roofs and chimneys in Holland, Denmark, and North 
Germany. The locality-sense is strongly developed, for year after 
year a nest is tenanted by the same pair of birds. They arrive in 
spring, leaving again in late summer, by which time the young are 
well grown. Before their departure they “assemble” in large 
numbers on the meadows, and fly away in troops, some of which 
have been estimated to include as many as five thousand indi- 
viduals. They winter in Africa, some of them getting as far south 
as Cape Colony. 
