3§4 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
them in the general ruin than to leave them to their fate; and there are many- 
other and well authenticated proofs of a similar disposition. They generally lay 
from two to four eggs of 
a dingy yellowish white, 
rather longer than those of 
the goose, but not so thick. 
The incubation lasts for a 
month, the male sharing 
in the task during the ab¬ 
sence of the female in search 
of food. When the young 
birds are hatched, they are 
carefully fed by their par¬ 
ents, who watch over them 
with the closest anxiety. 
As soon ^.s they become 
capable of flying, the parents 
exercise them in it by de¬ 
grees, carrying them at 
first upon their own wings, 
and then conducting them 
in short circular flights 
cranes on the victoria regia. around their nest. When in 
search of food the stork is 
commonly seen in its usual attitude of repose, standing upon one leg with its 
long neck bent backwards, its head resting 
on its shoulder and its eyes steadily fixed. 
Its motions are slow and measured, the 
length of its steps corresponding with that 
of its legs. In flight its head and neck are 
directed straight forward and its legs 
extended backward, an awkward and ap¬ 
parently constrained position, but that 
which is best calculated for enabling it to 
cleave the air with rapidity. 
In Bagdad, and some other of the 
more remote cities of Asiatic Turkey, 
the nests of storks present a very re¬ 
markable appearance. The minors , or 
towers of the mosques, at Constantinople 
and most other parts of Turkey, are tall, 
round pillars surmounted by a very 
pointed cone; but at Bagdad the absence 
of this cone enables these birds to build 
their nests upon the summit; and as the 
diameter of the nest generally cor- german stork (Cico). 
responds with that of the minar, it ap¬ 
pears as a part of it and a regular termination to it. This curious effect 
is not a little increased by the appearance of the bird itself in the nest, which 
