THE STORK 141 



sticks lined with grass and palmetto-fibre. ... In Fez 

 and other large towns, indeed, there is a regular Storks' 

 hospital. Should one be injured in any way or fall from 

 the nest, it is sent to this institution, or rather enclosure, 

 which is kept up by subscriptions from wealthy Moors, who 

 regard the Stork as a sacred bird." 



And a writer of last century says that in Bagdad — no 

 longer the splendid city that it was 



"in the golden prime 

 Of good Haroun Alraschid," 



the towers of the mosques, being flat, have been taken 

 possession of, coolly enough, by these privileged birds. 

 Each nest, being of the same width as the tower, seems 

 part of the structure, as you look up at it. But the mother 

 Stork with her long beak projecting over the edge, as she 

 broods on her nest, makes a crowning ornament which 

 is rather odd in its efiect. 



Canon Tristram mentions one grim sight that met his 

 eye on visiting Rabbath-Ammon, in south-east Palestine. 

 On the top of a great pile of ruins was an old Stork's nest, 

 fast falling to pieces. And from it, or near it, head down- 

 wards, hung the skeleton of one of the Storks. The poor 

 creature had caught its leg in a crevice of the masonry. 

 The leg had got broken and the bird had been unable to 

 get free. 



Thus caught it had fluttered and struggled, to the 

 dismay of all its fellow-Storks, until death put an end to 

 its sufiferings. There its body had hung, dangling and 

 swaying in the wind, while every Stork in the near 

 neighbourhood fled away from the unlucky spot. 



Bible lands, as we call them, see a great deal of the 

 Stork, and Canon Tristram rightly calls attention to the 

 truthfulness of the description in the Book of the Prophet 



