Stork

“ Now there are a flight of small, bright-plumaged birds, with the heron in pursuit, or a volley of long-necked cranes shoot with their discordant cry across our path, and an elderly stork, judging from the length of his legs, stands at a safe distance and watches us from the shore. ”

“ The stork's singular habit of standing on one leg affords the pelican a rare chance for a little fun, so he watches until a stork, in a meditative mood, takes up his favorite attitude beside the tank. Then up waddles the pelican and, with a chuckle, jostles against him, and sends him tumbling into the water. It is a question whether the stork enjoys the sport, but the pelican evidently does, for he leaps about evincing the utmost delight, flapping his wings, and squawking, or laughing, in triumph. ”

“ The heavy, damp mists of autumn, which destroy the leaves of the wood, had already fallen upon forest and heath. Feathers of plucked birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thick showers, and winter was coming. The sparrows took possession of the stork's nest, and conversed about the absent owners in their own fashion; and they, the stork pair and all their young ones, where were they staying now? The storks might have been found in the land of Egypt, where the sun's rays shone forth bright and warm, as it does here at midsummer. ”

“ Alas! the flesh is weak. His eyes have strayed from their contemplation of nothing, and his mind follows. "Wonder what's for dinner today?" thinks the stork. "Whitebait, perhaps, or soles—glorious! Something worth being a stork for! Even a whiting wouldn't be so bad, while, as for a nice trout with—well, there!" Soon the keeper appears. The stork doesn't run after him—that would not be becoming in a Mahatma; he waits with pretended indifference. And the keeper throws toward him—herrings, actually and literally herrings! It is too bad. ”

“ The pelican is a scrupulous old Dutchman, and the stork is an uncleanly old Hindu. And uncleanly he must be left, for it takes a deal to shame a stork. You can't shame a bird that wraps itself in a convenient philosophy. "Look here—look at me!" you can imagine a pelican cleanliness-missionary saying to the stork. "See how white and clean I keep all my feathers!" "Um," says the stork, "it only makes 'em a different colour." "But observe! I just comb through my pinions with my beak, so, and they all lie neat and straight!" ”

“ However, properly speaking, as long as the stork holds the child-hero in its beak, the latter is not considered born; it is only born at the moment in which, opening its beak, it puts the child down in its mother's lap. The stork personifies the funereal sky, the sky when the celestial hero, the sun, is dead. Hence it is believed in Germany that when storks fly round, or over a group of persons, some one of them is about to die; the clouds and the shadows that collect together presage the disappearance or death of the sun. ”

“ I asked of Aunt Joyce, who just then entered the room.
"Why 'tis a stork, child. The people here treat them as a kind of sacred animal, and the man who should kill one would be looked upon as a murderer. 'Tis counted a very lucky thing to have a stork's nest on one's house. We have a fine one. 'Tis said that the young birds will carry their old parents on their shoulders, and that the parents will perish in the fire rather than desert their young. Every one is glad to see the storks come back in the spring." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The stork is their king in the fable, and his daily visits to his realm strike dire distress amongst his subjects, which soon learn to know his conspicuous white and black garb, and seek imperfect safety at the bottom of shallow ponds and ditches, not too deep for the long-legged and long-billed despot. ”

“ Walking up and down beneath the trees are kind old storks, and as they walk they turn their heads, looking upward to see where there may be a sweet pink and white baby ready to be carried away, out of the garden into the big, strange world. It is a vast garden, and there are many trees and many storks, and every moment there is a whirring of strong wings and a stork has passed out of the confines of the garden with the dearest gift that Heaven can give to woman. ”

“ It is certain, that the stork bestows much time on the education of its young, and does not leave them till they have strength sufficient for their defence and support; when they begin to flutter out of the nest, the mother bears them on her wings, protects them from danger, and sometimes perishes with them rather than she will forsake them. The stork shows tokens of attachment to its old haunts, and even gratitude to the persons who have treated it with kindness. ”

“ But it is quite unlike the loud, hard noise made by the stork; the poor stork being a dumb bird has made a sort of policeman's rattle of his huge beak. These sounds do not follow each other; they come from time to time, the intervals being filled up with others in such endless variety, each bird producing its own notes, that one can but suppose that they are imitations. We know, in fact, that the starling is our greatest mimic, and that he often succeeds in recognizable reproductions of single notes, of phrases, and occasionally of entire songs, as, for instance, that of the blackbird. ”

“ The stork is regarded, in many countries, with a certain semi-superstitious reverence and esteem. After many prolonged and serious attempts to saturate myself with a similar feeling, I regret to confess to a certain smallness of esteem for the stork. You can't esteem a bird that makes ugly digs at your feet and heels with such a very big beak. Out in their summer quarters the storks are kept in by close wire, and close wire will give an air of inoffensiveness to most things. ”

“ If it should kick baby we should never forgive ourselves."
"No, no, my dear, I don't think the stork is at all ferocious. No, it can't be. Stork! stork! I always associate storks with chimneys. Yes, abroad, I think in Holland, or Germany, or somewhere, the stork sweeps the chimneys with its long legs from the top. But let's see what the Natural History says, my dear. That will tell us all about it. Stork—um—um—'hind toe short, middle toe long, and joined to the outer one by a large membrane, and by a smaller one to the inner toe.' Well, that won't matter much for one night, will it, dear? ”

“ The Farmer and the Stork
A Farmer placed nets on his newly sown plough lands, and caught a quantity of Cranes, which came to pick up his seed. With them he trapped a Stork also.
The Stork, having his leg fractured by the net, earnestly besought the Farmer to spare his life. "Pray, save me, master," he said, "and let me go free this once. My broken limb should excite your pity. Besides, I am no Crane. I am a Stork, a bird of excellent character; and see how I love and slave for my father and mother. Look, too, at my feathers, they are not the least like to those of a Crane." ”

“ As soon as they arrived they remarked a stork strutting up and down with a stately air, hunting for frogs, and now and then muttering something to itself. At the same time they saw another stork far above in the sky flying towards the same spot.
‘I would wager my beard, most gracious master,’ said the Grand Vizier, ‘that these two long legs will have a good chat together. How would it be if we turned ourselves into storks?’
‘Well said,’ replied the Caliph; ‘but first let us remember carefully how we are to become men once more. True! ”

“ If a stork makes his home about any one's house, it is a sign of good fortune to the people who live there.
"'It will surely come,' they say to themselves, 'and the storks will bring it.' Do you wonder the people like the birds so much?"
"I read a story about a mother stork," said Bertha, thoughtfully. "She had a family of baby birds. They were not big enough to leave their nest, when a fire broke out in the chimney where it was built. Poor mother bird! She could have saved herself. ”

“ This stork will pick up the offal and eat it, and we shall have no more bad fevers here for want of a good scavenger. By and by he will bring more storks, and they will multiply; and every house, however humble, shall have its own stork family to ornament the chimney-top and remind us of our dear native land. I have done all this good with the hope of being useful, and now I hope nobody will call me wicked names any more."
Nanking cut the fastenings on the bird and set it on the new-made nest. ”

“ Ages ago, there were camels and caravans in Africa, but there was no Holland, for the land was still under the waves. In India, also, the stork was an old bird, that waded in the pools and kept the frogs from croaking in terms of the multiplication table. Sometimes the stork population increased too fast and some went hungry for food; for, the proverb tells us that a stork "died while waiting for the ocean to dry, hoping to get a supply of dried fish." ”

“ As the cryer passed by, the storks flapped their wings and flew down from the housetops, and took their stand in a row before their houses, along the curbs; and wherever a stork stood before a house a woman came out with a bowl in her hand. When I reached the pastry cook’s shop, the pastry cook’s wife was kneeling on the sidewalk before the five little storks, feeding them gruel out of a bowl with a long spoon. ”

“ Who would not be a sheep? Here and there were little pine groves in this heath; the pine and the birch being the only trees which can keep any footing against heather when it sets out to usurp a territory, and even they cannot grow large or freely. Three storks rose from these downs as we passed, and flew slowly away, their great yellow feet shining as if they had on gold slippers.
"The country people reckon it a great blessing, ma'am, if a stork will build its nest on their roof," said Brita. "I dare say it is thought so in America the same." "No, Brita, we have no storks in America," I said. ”

“ But, barring storks, all creatures were game that came within Salam's range.
No Moor will harm a stork. Even Moorish children, whose taste for destruction and slaughter is as highly developed as any European's, will pick up a young stork that has fallen from its nest and return it to the mother bird if they can. Storks sit at peace among the women of the hareem who come for their afternoon airing to the flat roof-tops of Moorish houses. ”

“ Yet in other lands than ours the Stork family is held in high honour. In many parts of the Continent they are encouraged to build their nests in chimneys, steeples, and trees near dwellings. Indeed, as an inducement to them to pitch their quarters on the houses, boxes are sometimes erected on the roofs, and happy is the household which thus secures the patronage of a stork. Some of the people among whom they sojourn during the warm summer days regard the presence of the bird as a kind of safeguard against fire. ”

“ The storks were fast asleep, and he climbed on to the back of the father-stork and bound a silk cord round the joint of one of its wings, then he crept among its soft downy feathers and fell asleep.
The next morning the storks flew towards the south, for winter was approaching. The Hazel-nut child flew through the air on the stork’s back, and when he wanted to rest he bound his silk cord on to the joint of the bird’s other wing, so that it could not fly any farther. In this way he reached the country of the black people, where the storks took up their abode close to the capital. ”

“ The stork, thus prepared for his journey, rose up into the heavens, and away he went straight to the place where the mountains were knocking against one another and prevented any one approaching the fountains of life and death. ”

“ The stork has come off well in the matter of bodily endowment. The pelican has a tremendous beak—achieved, it would seem, by a skimping of material in the legs; but the stork has the tremendous beak and legs of surprising growth as well. His wings, too, are something more than respectable. At flying, at eating, at portentous solemnity of demeanour—in all these and in other things the pelican and the stork score fairly evenly; but at walking the pelican is left behind at once. This makes one suspect the stork's honesty. ”

“ Every one is familiar with the appearance of the common stork. The leading features of the stork family are their large size, their long legs, neck, and bill, and their perching habits. [219] In this last respect they differ from cranes, which never perch in trees. During flight their long necks are stretched out forwards, and their long legs stretched out backwards. ”

“ Even at the present day the Germans and Dutch esteem it a fortunate omen when a Stork selects their house for its home, and they even furnish it with inducements to do so by placing on their roofs a box or wheel, which forms a foundation for the Bird to build a nest, which it constructs of reeds, grass and feathers.
The Black Stork is rather smaller than the White Stork; it is a native of eastern Europe. It feeds almost exclusively on Fish, which it catches with much skill. It is very shy; avoids the society of Man; and builds its nest in trees. ”

“ The ordinary white stork is comparatively respectable, and so is the adjutant—or comparatively almost respectable, let us say; you can't be too cautious in giving a personal character to a [Pg 252] stork. For long, long, the stork has enjoyed a reputation for solemn wisdom, for philosophical dignity. Now for the first time I venture to question this reputation—to impeach the stork as a humbug. ”

“ Hermann, of Strasburg, says, “I saw in a garden, where the children were playing at hide and seek, a tame stork join the party, run its turn when touched, and distinguish the child, whose turn it was to pursue the rest, so well as to be on its guard.” In the domestic condition the stork lives to a great age, and endures the severities of our winters. Heerkens, of Groningen, author of a Latin poem on the stork, says that he kept one [II-569,
II-570] fifteen years; and speaks of another which lived twenty-one years in the fish-market of Amsterdam, and was interred with solemnity by the people. ”