- STORK. 
521 
and if they have been destroyed, they rebuild them 
with twigs and aquatic plants. They usually settle 
on lofty rums, on the battlements of towers, or any 
high situation where they can command an ex- 
tensive view, and yet conceal their nest. BufFon 
assures us, that it was customary in Belon’s time to 
place wheels on the house-tops in order to entice 
the storks to build their nests in them. This 
practice still subsists in Germany and Alsace ; and 
w r e are told that in Holland square boxes are 
planted on the ridges with the same view. The 
stork lays from two to four eggs of a dirty yel- 
lowish white ; the incubation lasts a month, and 
both parents are very assiduous in providing for 
their young. The male and female leave the nest 
by turns ; and while one is gone, the other stands 
near the spot on one leg, and constantly watches 
the brood. When the young first make their ap- 
pearance they are covered with a brown down, and 
their long legs being too weak to support them, 
they are obliged to creep upon their knees. When 
they are sufficiently fledged to venture from home, 
they trust themselves to the care of their mother, 
w r ho exercises them in small circumvolutions, and 
then returns with them to the nest ; after which 
they soon attain their full strength, and join the rest 
of their species. 
Among the antients it was considered a crime to 
kill a stork ; and Pliny assures us that in Thessaly 
the murder of one of these birds was punished by 
death, on account of their great use in clearing that 
