STORKS, HERONS 
); AND PELICAN TRIBE 51 
account of the peculiar gait, which bears a fanciful resem- 
blance to the measured pacing of an officer on parade. Like 
all the Storks, they have large bodies and very long legs, but 
they have outstripped all their relatives in the enormous size 
of the beak. The features which have earned this unenviable 
reputation for ugliness are the peculiarly unkempt and 
unwashed appearance of the head and neck. These are but 
scantily clothed in very shabby, brown-looking down-feathers ; 
and the neck is made still more, we might almost say, 
repulsive by the presence of a 
large bare pouch, which can 
be distended with air to an 
enormous size at will. The 
Arabs, onaccountof this pouch, 
call the species resident with 
them “The Father of the 
Leather Bottle.” Some, how- 
ever, say that the correct trans- 
lation of the native name 
a VA : 
Photo by L’. P. Dando, F.Z.S. 
ADJUTANT-STORK 
The curious wind bag ts well shown 
would be ‘ The Father of the 
Beak.” But it is not only on 
account of their scavenging 
propensities that the adjutants 
are esteemed, for it is from 
the under tail-coverts of these 
birds that the much-prized 
‘“ marabou” or ‘ comercolly ” 
feathers are obtained —atleast 1” “7"** parte Be Peres 
the finest kinds; for some 
appear to be furnished by that chief of scavengers, the vulture. 
More precious still ‘is the celebrated stone called Zahir 
mora, or poison-killer, of great virtue and repute as an anti- 
dote to all kinds of poison,” to be procured only by splitting 
open the head of the bird before death. Needless to say, 
the existence of this stone lives only in popular superstition, Sec 2 504) 
though how many poor birds have fallen victims thereto is Photo by Scholatiie: Photo. Co, 
not pleasant to contemplate. JABIRU STORK 
Adjutants choose almost inaccessible pinnacles of rock on This bird stands between g and 5 feet high 
Photo by H’, P. Dando, F.Z.S. 
ADJUTANT-STORK 
