788 
BIRD-LIFE. 
vanishes from our sight. They pass rapidly onwards, 
only first alighting in some locality where food promises 
to be plentiful. On each occasion of a halt they perform 
their wondrously beautiful aerial descent. The rapidity 
with which they migrate I have often experienced. They 
appear in the interior of Africa almost at the same time 
at which they left Germany. By the middle of September, 
and before the end of that month, the “ passage” is over, 
in 12° of north latitude. According to my own observa¬ 
tions they go as far south as 10° north latitude. 
Naumann, it is true, asserted that some individuals 
passed the winter in the south of Spain; but he was 
mistaken, for they do not even stop in Egypt. It is said 
that a nobleman, of Lemburg, once caught a Stork, round 
whose neck he attached an iron collar, with the Latin 
words, “Hcec ciconia ex Polonia,” engraved on it. He let 
the bird go, and the next year the bird returned with the 
addition of a thin gold ring, on which was engraved the 
following inscription: “India cum donis remittit ciconiam 
Polonis.” That the Stork also winters in India is an 
undoubted fact: those, however, which breed in Galicia 
would hardly migrate there, but go rather to Africa, 
which latter continent they visit far into the interior; 
they pass Egypt and Nubia, touching only, on their 
“passage” further south, a flock never wintering in either 
of these countries. I once, at this season, met with two 
Storks in Nubia, but one was sick, and the other had 
stopped to keep it company. Similar cases have occurred 
in Germany, but they are only exceptional. 
Old Storks are very difficult to catch, as they well know 
how to avoid a trap: they are useless, however, for keep¬ 
ing in confinement, because they always remain wild and 
untameable. A young bird is, on the contrary, easily 
