Who calls the council, states the certain day?
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
In the beginning of May they return, like swallows, to their former haunts, the old birds carefully seeking out their accustomed nests. Sometimes, though rarely, a stray stork crosses the channel, and is seen on the English coast. It is there incessantly persecuted; it commonly perches on the roof of some thatched farm-house, where its experience leads it to hope for protection,—but it is not the dwelling of a quiet Dutch boor;[423] some pseudo-sportsman of a farmer shoots the poor bird while at roost.”
Of the numerous families which frequent the sides of rivers and the sea-beach, that of the stork is the best known and the most celebrated. It contains two species, the white and the black. They are exactly of the same form, and have no external difference but that of colour.
The black stork prefers desert tracts, perches on trees, haunts unfrequented marshes, and breeds in the heart of forests.
The white stork, on the contrary, settles beside dwellings; inhabits towers, chimnies, and ruins. The friend of man, it shares his habitations, and even his domain. It fishes in his rivers, pursues its prey into his gardens, and takes up its abode in the midst of cities, without being disturbed by the noise and bustle. On the Temple of Concord, in the capitol of Rome, were many storks’ nests. The fact is memorialized on the medals of the emperor Adrian, and alluded to by Juvenal in his first satire.
The stork flies steadily and with vigour; holds its head straight forward, and stretches back its legs, to direct its motion; soars to a vast height, and performs distant journies even in tempestuous seasons. It arrives in Germany about the eighth or tenth of May, and is seen before that time in the provinces of France. Gesner says, it precedes the swallow, and enters Switzerland in the month of April, and sometimes earlier. It arrives in Alsace in March, or even in the end of February. The return of the storks is ever auspicious, as it announces the spring. They instantly indulge those tender emotions which that season inspires: Aldrovandus paints with warmth their mutual signs of felicity, the eager congratulations, and the fondling endearments of the male and female, on their coming home from their distant journey. “When they have arrived at their nest—good God! what sweet salutation; what gratulation for their prosperous return! what embraces! what honied kisses! what gentle murmurs they breathe!” It is to be observed, that they always settle in the same spots, and, if their nest has been destroyed, they rebuild it with twigs and aquatic plants, usually on lofty ruins, or the battlements of towers; sometimes on large trees beside water, or on the point of bold cliffs. In France it was formerly customary to place wheels on the house-tops, to entice the stork to nestle. The practice still subsists in Germany and Alsace: and in Holland square boxes are planted on the ridge, with the same view.
When the stork is in a still posture it rests on one foot, folds back its neck, and reclines its head on its shoulder. It watches the motions of reptiles with a keen eye, and commonly preys on frogs, lizards, serpents, and small fish, which it finds in marshes by the sides of the streams, and in wet vales.
It walks like the crane with long measured strides. When irritated or discomposed, or influenced by affection to its mate, it makes with its bill a repeated clattering, which the ancients express by the significant words crepitat and glotterat, [424] and which Petronius accurately marks by the epithet crotalistria,[425] formed from crotalum, the castanet or rattle. In this state of agitation it bends its head back, so that the lower mandible appears uppermost, the bill lies almost parallel on the back, and the two mandibles strike violently against each other; but in proportion as it raises up its neck the clattering abates, and ceases when the bird has resumed its ordinary posture. This is the only noise the stork ever makes, and, as it seems dumb, the ancients supposed it had no tongue.