STORK. 



175 



beak, and flying off, drop the eel again and again until it 

 was rendered ready to be devoured. In some of the larger 

 towns of Holland, where they can boast of having a fish- 

 market, a pair of Storks may constantly be seen walking about 

 the market, where they live upon the refuse of the fish, and 

 are consequently of great use as scavengers. 



In addition to the above-named situations for the nest 

 of the Stork, we may mention church-steeples, turrets, and 

 ruins. The nest itself is larger than that of the swan, and 

 the materials employed in its construction consist of dry 

 sticks, straw, &c. In it the female deposits her three or four 

 eggs, which are usually in form and colour as represented 

 in our plate; and after a month's incubation the young birds 

 come forth. 



A very curious anecdote was recorded some years ago in a 

 German newspaper, which strongly illustrates the wonderful 

 parental affection of this species for their young, A house, 

 on the top of which was a Stork's nest containing young birds, 

 took fire. In the midst of the conflagration the old birds were 

 seen flying to and from the nest, and plunging into a neigh- 

 bouring piece of water, in which they soaked their feathers, 

 and returning again and again to the nest, sprinkled the 

 water over their young in such abundance, that they not only 

 preserved their young ones, but saved from destruction 

 that part of the building on which the nest was situated. 



This species can easily be kept in confinement ; but there 

 is no great inducement for keeping them, on account of their 

 great voracity, and their fondness for young fowls and ducks. 

 They also require much water, and their size demands a greater 

 reservoir than can well be supplied in the ordinary way. 

 When the Stork takes a piece of fish or meat from the 

 ground, it invariably washes it before consuming it. 



This bird is in the habit of making a peculiar noise with its 

 beak, by beating the upper and under mandibles together 



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