130 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



a loud clattering of the bill ; this is, I think, their 

 love-song, as although 1 have frequently witnessed 

 savage combats between male Storks, I never heard 

 them make this noise on such occasions. A pair 

 or two of Storks nest annually on the cathedral 

 of Seville, and several other churches of that 

 beautiful city are similarly occupied. I have fre- 

 quently been amused whilst taking the sun in 

 the squares and open places in sight of the famous 

 tower of the Giralda, at seeing one or two of these 

 great slow-flying birds passing to and fro amongst 

 the circling Kestrels, Swifts, and Pigeons, with 

 which Seville swarms in the spring and summer 

 months. On May 1, 1872, whilst on our voyage by 

 steamer from Seville to San Lucar de Barrameda, we 

 fell in with an enormous number of Storks, all busily 

 engaged in feeding on the open marsh-land ; on 

 no other occasion have I ever seen such a congre- 

 gation as this, and conspicuous amongst these birds 

 was a single Black Stork {Ciconia nigra), a bird 

 by no means very common, so far as my experience 

 goes, in that or any other part of Spain. The White 

 Stork lays four or five pui'e white eggs. In Southern 

 Spain the young birds are generalJy to be seen 

 standing upright in their nests about the third week 

 of May, but in cold seasons I have seen fresh eggs as 

 late as the first week of June. In captivity our bird 

 oecomes very tame, but I have found it impossible to 

 keep two males in the same compartment of my 

 aviary at Lilford, and although the conjugal affection 

 of a mated pair of Storks is very justly proverbial, I 

 do not consider them as good neighboui^s or com- 

 panions to smaller or more defenceless birds of other 

 species. In the Althorp Household accounts, I find 



