260 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



THE STORK. 



1. The stork appears most at home in the low lands of 

 Holland, and by the people of that country he is held more 

 sacred than anywhere else. In the landscapes of the old 

 Dutch painters he forms an almost typical accessory ; in 

 every village, and in most towns even, he is at home ; and 

 in the Hague a house has been built in the middle of the 

 market-place on purpose for him. He is of noble extrac- 

 tion, of high birth, as the nursery rhyme says, for his im- 

 posing nest is reared on roofs and gables. A pollard tree 

 in the neighborhood of a house or village serves him often 

 for a domicile ; an ash, a maple, or an oak, for an elevated 

 throne, is absolutely necessary for him, in order that he 

 may have an extended view over his territory of meadows, 

 fields, and morass. 



2. When with the first warm March breeze the stork 

 returns to his village, there is great rejoicing. He is 

 greeted with song and exclamation, as one welcome back, 

 as a faithful, long-missed friend. The old people in the 

 village know him as the contemporary of their youth ; 

 and to the children, whose friend pre-eminently he is, he 

 brings the assurance and the pledge that spring, for which 

 they have so impatiently longed, is come. He has, so to 

 say, signed Spring's passport with his vise; there is no 

 longer any doubt of his arrival. 



3. His very figure, how characteristic and significant ! 

 On a high wooden leg, which seems stuck into a red Eus- 

 sia-leather boot, is balanced his stately body, over which 

 he has thrown his white traveling cloak, turned up with 

 black. His tail is short and obtuse ; all the more slender 

 and elongated is his neck, which carries the peculiarly ex- 

 pressive head with a tranquil dignity. The plumage lies 



