250 
POPULAE HISTOHY OP BIRDS. 
and that the hawk, to avoid being wounded by the stroke 
of the sharp, much-hooked inner claw of this crane, strikes 
it on the back and wings. The bird never seems to attack 
with its beak, as herons and bitterns do. 
The regularity of the return of the Stork to the shores of 
the Mediterranean in summer is proverbial. The Scrip- 
tures say, " The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed 
times^^ (Jer. viii. 7). 
A recent able scientific traveller^ thus writes of the 
stork: — March 23. . . . We saw several storks today 
for the first time. The regularity with which these birds 
return to their summer quarters is a very curious fact ; as 
each successive year witnesses their return almost on the 
same day. At Smyrna they generally appear on the 9th of 
March ; and, when I was there on the following year during 
that month, I saw them on the 10th for the first time. 
They are much protected by the Turks ; and, independently 
of the superstitious motive that a house on which they build 
is insured against fire, they are of great use to the peasant 
and the farmer, by following the plough, and devouring the 
grubs as they are turned up.^' Storks also add much to the 
* William J. Hamilton, Esq., 'Researclies in Asia Minor, Pontus, and 
Armenia,' vol. i. p. 70. 
