THE WHITE STORK. 
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out of the nest. Storks not unfrequently do this without 
any assignable cause; and the common folk look upon 
this as an offering on the part of the birds, due to the 
hospitality accorded to them ! 
At first the young birds cannot stand upright, but after 
a few weeks they learn to raise themselves. Shortly 
before they are able to fly they commence the art of 
snapping their beaks. At the end of about two months 
they can use their pinions, and continue practising them 
without intermission, until one fine morning they leave 
the nest with their parents. For some considerable time 
the family returns to the nest every evening, after which 
parents and brood soon forsake the neighbourhood, and 
enter upon their long migratory journey. 
By the end of July the Storks make preparations for 
their “passage,” still, however, remaining for some time 
in the neighbourhood of their birthplace, though already 
uniting with others of their species. The flock increases 
in number day by day; each day more Storks are seen 
upon the extensive plains as they come in from all sides, 
till at last they may be counted by thousands. 
Now a careful mustering of travelling companions takes 
place: the weak and sickly, who are unfitted for the 
voyage, are weeded out, and, as is asserted by some 
people, even killed; tame birds, which are occasionally 
found amongst them, are, to say the least of it, very 
badly treated. Such proceedings form the celebrated 
“ Council of Storks,” which, though often exaggerated to 
a fabulous extent, is, to a certain degree, a well-founded 
fact. 
After the muster is over the “council” breaks up 
amidst a grand snapping of beaks; the vast host of birds 
rises in spiral lines high up into the heavens, and soon 
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