CHAPTER VII.
STORKS, HERONS, AND PELICAN TRIBE.
The Storks, Herons, and Pelican Tribe form a group of closely allied but externally very unlike birds, distantly related to the Petrels on the one hand, and the Cranes and Hawk Tribe on the other.
The Storks.
Photo by L. Medland, F.Z.S.] [North Finchley.
FULMAR PETREL.
Like the vulture, this bird will so gorge itself with food as to be unable, for a time, to fly.
There are few birds which have figured more prominently in the realms of fairy-tale and fable than the White Stork. Today it is almost universally held in affectionate regard, and in Holland, Denmark, and Germany is afforded the strictest protection, every effort being made, in localities where it is plentiful, to induce it to build its nest upon the house-roof. Sometimes, to effect this, its fondness for a stage of some sort being known, a cart-wheel is set up, and this generally proves successful, the grateful bird erecting thereon its nest. Once occupied, it may be held by several generations of tenants; and year by year additions are made to the nest, so that the original shallow structure at last attains a height of several feet. The material used in its construction consists of sticks and other substances. He considers himself a fortunate man indeed who can boast a stork's nest on his house.
To show how widespread is the regard in which this bird is held, we may mention that in Morocco, according to Colonel Irby, "almost every Moorish hovel has its stork's nest on the top, a pile of sticks lined with grass and palmetto-fibre," and he goes on to relate that in "Morocco and Fez, and some other large towns in the Moorish Empire, there is a regular storks' hospital, and that, should one be in any way injured or fall from the nest, it is sent to this institution, or rather enclosure, which is kept up by subscriptions from wealthy Moors, who regard the stork as a sacred bird."