WHALE-HEADED STORK. — £alcenice*js Bex. 
The singular Whale-headed Stork 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, who first brought this bird to England, found it in the Rhol 
district, 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. 
It feeds upon fish and water snakes, and will also tear open the carcases of 
dead animals with its strong hooked bill. 
The chief point in this fine bird is the huge bill, which, from its resemblance 
in size and shape to a shoe, has gained for its owner the title of Shoe-bird. It 
is enormously expanded at each side of the beak, the edges of the upper mandible 
overhang those of the lower, and its tip is furnished with a large hook, curved and 
sharp as that of an eagle. 
225 
Q 
