790 
BIRD-LIFE. 
forth. Other species of Storks enjoy similar fellowship 
and protection at the hands of man. I was once cursed 
and abused, aye, seriously threatened even, on an occasion 
when I sought to examine the nest and take the eggs of 
the Sacred Black Stork, in the Eastern Soudan; and I 
only succeeded in appeasing the anger of the crowd by 
asserting that I wanted to prepare a valuable medicine, 
in which it was imperatively necessary that one of the 
ingredients should be the egg-shells of a sacred bird, 
inasmuch that those of any other could not possibly 
possess the same virtues ! 
