THE STORK. 



A WHOLE world of fairy tales and nursery lore 

 clusters round the great White Stork. Belonging 

 partly to our common earth, and partly to the realm 

 of make-believe, he is a sort of delightful go-between con- 

 necting the two. He has the wise, grave look of one who 

 has travelled far and learned much. If only he could 

 speak, we feel sure that he could relate wonderful things. 



In certain lands he is treated with the greatest respect. 

 His yearly coming is watched for and welcomed. If he 

 chooses this or that man's house-roof to build his nest 

 upon, great is that man's satisfaction. 



All the children of those countries — German, Danish, 

 Dutch — love the White Stork. He fills quite an im- 

 portant place in their life. He is mixed up with their 

 earliest fancies. He figures largely in their favourite 

 stories. 



For the story-tellers have always been fond of the 

 Stork — from ^sop, who lived six hundred years before the 

 Christian era, down to Hans Andersen, who died less than 

 five and thirty years ago. Most of my readers will re- 

 member Andersen's description of the Stork family on the 

 roof, and the way the mother bird bids her children never 

 mind the taunts of the rude boys in the street below, for 

 soon all the Stork families would be far away in a beautiful 

 land, while the jeering boys would be shivering with the 

 cold of the Northern winter : 



" Listen to me," she says, " and not to them. All the 



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