168 
AN AFFECTIONATE BIRD. 
The previously-named are the only species which have 
ever been taken in England, and these but very rarely. The 
length of the first of them is about forty-two inches, and of 
the second about thirty- eight inches. This last has plumage 
mostly of a brownish-black colour, glossed with purple and 
green ; the breast and abdomen being white, the bill and 
feet red. The plumage of the first is altogether white, the 
bill and feet being much like those of the black species. 
It is not in Britain that the habits of either of these birds 
can be studied, their occurrence being confined to but few 
instances. Continental writers inform us that in the 
temperate parts of Europe they arrive near the end of 
spring, and leave in October, proceeding in large flocks, and 
betaking themselves to Africa and Asia. Being gi-eat de- 
stroyers of reptiles, they are welcomed wherever they go, 
and suflfered to build and breed unmolested, so that they 
become quite familiar and fearless of man, frequently 
residing in towns, and making their large flat nests — - 
composed externally of sticks and twigs, and internally of 
straws and dry herbage — upon the chimneys and other 
elevated parts of buildings. There the three or four eggs, 
of a greenish-white colotfl:, are laid ; and they and the 
young birds are so carefully tended by the parents, that the 
Stork has become an emblem of parental love. 
In an article on these birds which appeared in ^ Chambers's 
Journ^-l,' quite recently, we read : — 
It is curious to note in what high repute Storks have been held 
from the very earliest ages. Their Hebrew name (Chasedah or 
Chaseedah) signifies ' pious,' or * benevolent,' and both among the 
Greeks and Eomans the Stork was the emblem of filial piety, of 
chastity, of conjugal fidelity, and of gTatitude — * too many virtues, 
alas ! ' says a French ornithologist, ' for a single bird.' Most of our 
readers have heard what the ancients believed concerning the filial 
affection of storks — how that when the parents grew old, and inca- 
pable of feeding themselves, the young birds brought them food, and 
waited on them with all possible tenderness, even taking them on 
their backs and giving them a ride through the air ; hence the law, 
attributed to Solon, by which children were bound to support their 
parents in old age, was called the Pelagian or Stork law. It is cer- 
tain that Storks possess an unusual degree of affection for their 
young, and according to BufFon, some instances have been observed 
of birds who were unable to fly, either from weakness or accidental 
