THE WHITE STORK. 
177 
Justice is sworn ’gainst tears ; and hers would crave 
The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, 
And then she died on him she could not save. 
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust. 
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust.”* 
Had the noble poet seen the column as it was in the year 1826, 
his ^ Pilgrimage^ might have been enriched with an additional 
stanza. 
When visiting Smyrna in the summer of 1841, I learned that 
the storks, when building on the houses there, decidedly prefer 
those of the Turks to the mansions of the Greeks : — a remark 
which seemed fanciful, until it was explained that the former, in 
their kind and amiable feeling towards the lower animals, protect 
the birds, while the Greeks do not scruple to rob their nests and 
otherwise annoy them. 
Since the preceding was written, the subject has been alluded 
to in the very interesting work on Lycia, by my friends, Lieut. 
Spratt and Professor Edward Eorbes, published in 1846. It is 
there remarked — The superior mildness of the climate and 
advance of the season in this locality [Almalee], though elevated 
4,000 feet above the sea, was indicated by the storks, several of 
which birds had built their enormous nests on the house-tops in 
the village. In one, the young were already fledged [May 14]. 
As yet, in the more northern plains, but few storks had ventured, 
and none had begun to breed. Storks and swallows are almost 
domesticated in Turkey, through the scrupulous care shown by 
the inhabitants to preserve their nests. They are allowed to build 
where they like, unmolested. * ^ The stork seldom builds 
his nest far from a village, and usually selects the roof of a house 
* “ Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain attempt to save 
her father, condenaned to death as a traitor by Aulus Csecina. Her epitaph was dis- 
covered many years ago ; it is thus : — “ Julia Alpinula : Hie jaceo : Infelicis 
patris infelix proles. Dese Aventise Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: 
Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos xxiii.” I know of no human composition 
so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions 
which ought not to perish, and to which we turn, with a true and healthy tenderness, 
from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, 
with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from 
whence it recurs at length, with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication.” 
VOL. II. N 
