. The popular natural history . Zoology. 390 THE STORK. scraped very thin, and polished, and is then used as a spoon, and is thought a valuable article, being sometimes set in silver. The breeding-places of the Spoonbill are usually open trees, the banks of rivers, or in little islands and tufts of aquatic herbage. In the latter cases the nest is rather large, and is made of reeds piled loosely together, and set on a foundation of water-weeds heaped sufficiently high to keep the eggs from the wet. There is no lining to the nest. The eggs are generally four in number, and their colour is greyis
. The popular natural history . Zoology. 390 THE STORK. scraped very thin, and polished, and is then used as a spoon, and is thought a valuable article, being sometimes set in silver. The breeding-places of the Spoonbill are usually open trees, the banks of rivers, or in little islands and tufts of aquatic herbage. In the latter cases the nest is rather large, and is made of reeds piled loosely together, and set on a foundation of water-weeds heaped sufficiently high to keep the eggs from the wet. There is no lining to the nest. The eggs are generally four in number, and their colour is greyish white, spotted with rather pale rusty brown. The Stork is another of the birds which, in the olden days, were tolerably frequent visitors to the British Islands, but which now seldom make their appearance in such inhospitable re- gions, where food is scarce and guns are many. It is sufficiently common in many parts of Europe, whither it migrates yearly from its winter quarters in Af- rica, makes its nest, and rears its young. The Stork attaches itself to man and his habitations, building its huge nest on the top of his house, and walking about in his streets as fami- liarly as if it had built them. It espe- cially parades about the fish-markets, where it finds no lack of subsistence in the offal ; and in Holland, where it is very common, it does good Ser- vice by destroying the frogs and other reptiles which would be likely to be- come a public nuisance unless kept down by the powerful aid of this bird. The Stork is fond of making its nest upon some elpvated spot, such as the top of a house, a chimney, or a church spire ; and, in the ruined cities of the East, almost every solitary pillar has its Stork's nest upon the summit. The nest is little more than a hetero- geneous bundle of sticks, reeds, and similar substances heaped together and with a slight depression for tl e eggs. These are usually three or four in number, and their colour is white with a tinge of huff. The colo
Size: 1408px × 1775px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1884
