THE WHALE-HEADED STORK. 
557 
men to whom time is of no value, manage to creep within range of their weapons ; but even 
to them the task is a difficult one, and to Europeans almost impracticable. One good sports- 
man, who succeeded at last in killing a Jabiru, followed it several days before he could get 
within long range of the suspicious bird. 
The food of this species mostly consists of fish, and eels seem to be their favorite diet. 
Ordinary fish it swallows at once, but eels and gar-fish are battered about until dead before the 
bird attempts to devour them. Nearly two pounds of eels and small fish have been found in 
the stomach of a shot Jabiru. 
In its coloring the Australian Jabiru is a very handsome bird, and its movements are quiet, 
majestic, easy, and graceful. The large head and neck are rich shining green, changing to 
rainbow tints of violet and purple upon the back of the head, the feathers gleaming in the sun 
with a light metallic radiance. “The greater wing-coverts, scapularies, lower part of the 
back and tail are dark brown mixed with rich bluish-green, which changes in the adult to 
a rich glossy green tinged with a golden lustre. The smaller wing-coverts, lower part of the 
neck and back, and upper part of the breast are white speckled with ashy-brown, but become 
pure white in the adult ; lower part of the breast, thighs, and inner part of the wings, white. 
Eyes brilliant and hazel in color. The legs are blackish with a dark tinge of red, becoming of 
a bright red color in the adult ; and when the bird flies with the legs stretched out, looking 
like a long red tail My specimen measures three feet ten inches to the top of the 
head, and is not yet full grown ; they are said to attain four or five feet in height.” The 
specimen belonging to Dr. Bennett died after a captivity of about seven months, nearly four 
of which were passed in Dr. Bennett’s residence. The cause of his death v r as not known— 
probably the diet might have been injurious. 
The singular Whale-headed Stoek is the most striking of its tribe. 
This bird lives in Northern Africa, near the Nile, but is seldom seen on the banks of that 
river, preferring the swampy districts to the running water. Mr. Petherick found it in the 
Eliol district, about latitude 5° to 8°, in a large tract of country about a hundred and fifty miles 
in extent, where the ground is continually swelled by rains, and has by degrees modified into 
a huge morass, some parts flooded with water, others blooming with vegetation, and the whole 
surrounded by thick bush. “This spot,” writes Mr. Petherick in his “ Egypt, the Soudan, 
and Central Africa,” “is the favorite home of the Balseniceps. 
“These birds are seen in clusters of from a pair to perhaps one hundred together, mostly 
wading in the water ; and when disturbed, will fly low over its surface and settle at no great 
distance. But if frightened and fired at, they rise in flocks high in the air, and after hovering 
and wheeling around settle on the highest trees, and as long as their disturbers are near, will 
not return to the water. Their roosting-place at night is, to the best of my belief, on the ground. 
“ Their food is principally fish and water-snakes, which they have been seen by my men to 
kill and devour. They will also feed on the intestines of dead animals, the carcases of which 
they easily rip open with the strong hook of their upper bill. 
“Their breeding time is in the rainy season, during the months of July and August, and 
the spot chosen is in the reeds or light grass immediately on the water’s edge or on some small 
elevated and dry spot entirely surrounded by water. The bird before laying scrapes a hole in 
the earth, in which, without any lining of grass or feathers, the female deposits her eggs. 
Numbers of these nests have been robbed by my men, both of eggs and young, but the young 
birds so taken have invariably died. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to rear them, con- 
tinued for two years, the eggs were eventually hatched under hens, which were procured at a 
considerable distance from the Baik negroes. 
“As soon as the hens began to lay, and in due time to sit, a part of their eggs were replaced 
with half the number of those of the Balseniceps, as fresh as possible from the nest, the locality 
of which was previously known, and several birds were successfully hatched. These young 
birds ran about the premises of the camp, and, to the great discomfort of the hens, would per- 
sist in performing all sorts of unchickenable manoeuvres, with their large beaks and extended 
wings, in a small artificial pool constantly supplied with water by several negresses retained 
