In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 



221 



it is considered an omen of ill luck indeed should these birds desert 

 a breeding-place they have once pitched upou. I am able, however, 

 to record two notices of its occurrence more recently among us. A 

 good specimen, a male, was killed by Hart in the early autumn of 

 1881, which he has now preserved in his Museum. He had gone 

 out early in the dusk of the morning, when being some fifty yards 

 below the town quay at Christchurch he perceived several large 

 birds passing over his head, and on firing brought down the bird in 

 question. There were, he believed, two others with it, but the light 

 was too indistinct for him to speak for certain. The second specimen 

 was killed at Codford, in this county, on September 5th, 1882. It 

 was shot (as I am informed by Mr. White, the taxidermist who set 

 it up, and who now lives in Fisherton Street, Salisbury,) by Mr. 

 Cole, of Codford, on a chimney-stack in his premises. It is still, 

 I believe, in his possession, and naturally greatly valued by 

 him. 



Meyer relates a very curious anecdote, recorded in a German 

 newspaper, illustrating the wonderfully strong affection this species 

 has for its young. " A house, on the top of which was a Storks 

 nest containing young birds, took fire. In the midst of the con- 

 flagration the old birds were seen flying to and from the nest, and 

 plunging into a neighbouring 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. " 



Their plumage, when in good feather, is very pleasing from its 

 strong contrasts — -the pure white of its entire plumage being 

 strikingly set off by the pure black of the quill feathers, and the 

 bright scarlet of its formidable beak and legs. 



Ciconia Nigra. " Black Stork. " A much rarer bird than the 

 preceding, both in our own island and also across the Channel. 

 There is a fine specimen of this bird, however, in Lord Malmesbury*s 

 collection at Heme Court, which was killed, as Hart informs me, 

 on Friday, November 22nd, 1829, by a clay-boat man on the south 

 side of Poole Harbour. There was also another procured in 1849, 



VOL. XXI. — NO. LXII. Q 



