110 NATURALISTS CABINET. 



Peculiar habits. 



wounds, attended by three other storks who 

 no sooner alighted than they all together fell 

 upon the tame stork and killed him. 



Storks are birds of passage, and observe great 

 exactness in the time of their autumnal departure 

 from Europe to more favourite climates. They 

 pass a second summer in Egypt and the marshes 

 of Barbary : in the former country they pair; and 

 lay again, and educate a second brood. Before 

 each of their migrations, they rendezvous in 

 amazing numbers. They are for a while much 

 in motion among themselves; and after making 

 several short excursions, as if to try their wings, 

 all on a sudden take flight with great silence, and 

 with such speed, as in a moment to be invisible. 



During their migrations, they are seen in yast 

 flocks. Shaw saw three flights of them leaving 

 Egypt, and passing over Mount Carmel, each 

 half a mile in breadth ; and he says they were 

 three hours in passing over. 



Storks are seldom seen farther north than Swe- 

 den : and though they have scarcely ever been 

 met within England, they are so common in Hol- 

 land as to build every where on the tops of the 

 houses, where the good-natured inhabitants pro- 

 vide boxes for them to make their nests in ; and 

 are careful that the birds suffer no injury, always 

 resenting this as an offence committed against 

 themselves. Storks are also common at Aleppo 

 and in plenty at Seville, in Spain. At Bagdad, 

 hundreds of their nests are said to be seen about 

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