AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 135 



were so common as they now are, the visits of this 

 handsome bird were more frequent and more pro- 

 longed than they are at present. It cannot, however, 

 be called a very rare bird with us, and few years pass 

 without one or more records of the murder of a 

 Stork in England, generally on or near our eastern 

 coasts. The White Stork is a common but very 

 local summer visitor to most parts of Europe, and 

 is generally protected and encouraged, but I have 

 recently heard that the game-preservers of Germany 

 are beginning to look upon our bird as an enemy on 

 account of its destruction of young Partridges, and I 

 greatly fear that as the Stork is a very promiscuous 

 feeder, there may be good grounds for the accusation ; 

 its usual food, however, consists of frogs and other 

 small reptiles, mice, fishes, and worms, and in hot 

 climates it renders invaluable service to man by 

 devouring the myriads of locusts and grasshoppers 

 that often invade the green crops. These birds 

 generally nest upon buildings, more rarely on high 

 trees, in Holland often upon cart-wheels erected upon 

 poles for the express purpose, and in Spain they 

 often select farm-stacks in the open country ; the 

 same nest is used year after year, and its bulk 

 increased by annual additions of sticks till the 

 structure becomes a " stack " in itself. Whilst one of 

 the parent birds is on the nest, the other is generally to 

 be seen perched close by, or stalking about the fields 

 in the immediate neighbourhood in search of food ; 

 where unmolested, these birds become perfectly fear- 

 less of man, and in Turkey and Spain I have often 

 passed the hot hours of the day within a few feet of 

 a nesting pair of Storks who took no notice of uSr 

 The only sound that I ever heard from these birds is 



