170 
A USEFUL BIRD. 
continually to cover them -witli her wings. At length, too weak to 
sustain an unequal combat, by a desperate effort she approached her 
branch-formed nest, where lay her expiring mate, and the young 
ones, yet unable to take wing. She caught the nest in her bill, shook 
it forcibly, and turned it over, dashing from the top of the tower the 
objects of her affection, rather than see them fall a prey to their 
enemy ; then, devoting herself singly, a resigned Adctim, she fell upon 
the wheel, where, with a blow of his beak, the Vulture terminated her 
existence. We were all touched to the heart by the sight of this 
combat and this defence. To use an expression then in fashion, it was 
a real family tragedy. The Count du Nord especially seemed as much 
interested and excited as if he had been looking on a strife between 
two mail-clad warriors. 
It is said by Bellonius that Storks visit Egypt in such 
abundance that the fields are white with them. Yet the 
Egyptians are not displeased with this sight ; as frogs are 
so numerous that, did not the Storks devour them, they 
would overrun everything. The same writer informs us 
that, in some parts of Palestine rats and mice are so 
abundant, that the inhabitants would have no harvest were 
it not for the presence of this useful bird. 
In Holland the Stork is protected, because it checks the 
multiplication of reptiles in the marshes; the Vaudois 
cherish and venerate it for its friendly offices ; the Arabs, 
in like manner, treat it with the most hospitable regard ; 
and the Turks and Eastern tribes consider it as a sacred 
bird, which they are forbidden to kill. At Constantinople, 
accordingly, the Storks build their nests in the streets. 
A Mussulman cannot patiently bear to see one of them 
molested ; and the ancient Thessalians made the killing of 
them a capital crime. The Moors, too, religiously abstain 
from offering violence to them ; and hence the valley of 
Monkazem appears to be the resort of all the Storks of 
Barbary, which, in this district, are more numerous than 
the inhabitants. 
We learn, from Juvenal, that a Stork built its nest on 
the Temple of Concord, at Eome, in the midst of all the 
noise and bustle of the capitol, a circumstance which the 
medals of Adrian commemorated. ' 
Southey, in his ' Letters from Spain,' says, that in that 
country the Storks build their broad nests on the towers of 
