THIS bird is now unknown in England, and the accounts of its size which are furnished by naturalists and travellers vary exceedingly. Willoughby and Pennant make it from five to six feet long, from the beak to the tail; and others state that it is above five feet high. On the contrary, Bresson describes it as something less than the brown stork, about three feet high, and about four from the beak to the tail. The latter writer is generally admitted to be the most correct; although the one he describes may possibly have been a small bird, The figure of the crane is tall and slender, with a long neck, and long legs. It is very social in its habits, and usually lives in flocks amounting to fifty or sixty in number.

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Cranes are birds of passage, and they are seen to depart and re

turn regularly, at those seasons when their provision invites or repels them, They generally leave Europe at the latter end of Autumn, and return in the beginning of the summer. In the inland parts of the continent, they are seen crossing the country in flocks of fifty or a hundred, making from the northern regions towards the south. In these journeys they sometimes soar so high, however, as to be entirely out of sight; but then their tract is to be distinctly ascertained by their loud and peculiar clangor. To the instinctive precaution of these birds in securing themselves against the miseries of famine, by migrating from one part of the earth to another, there is a reference in Jer. viii. 7, where the blindness of the Jewish nation to the indications of approaching judgments is forcibly reproved: 'The crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.'

crane.

THE external appearance of the stork differs little from that of the It is of the same size; and has the same formation as to the bill, neck, legs, and body, except that it is something more corpulent. Its differences are but very slight; such as the color, which in the crane is ash and black, but in the stork is white and brown. The nails of the toes of the stork, also, are very peculiar, not being

clawed like those of other birds, but flat, like the nails of a man. Its true distinctions, however, are to be taken rather from its manner than its form. The crane has a loud piercing voice; the stork is silent, and produces no other noise than the clacking of its under chap against the upper: the crane has a strange convolution of the windpipe through the breast bone; the stork's is formed in the usual manner: the crane feeds mostly upon vegetables and grain; the stork preys entirely upon frogs, fishes, birds, and serpents: the crane avoids towns and populous places; the stork lives always in or near them: the crane lays but two eggs, and the stork generally four. These are distinctions fully sufficient to mark the species, notwithstanding the similitude of their form.

It was probably on account of the description of food upon which this bird preys, that it was prohibited as an article of food to the Jewish people, Lev. xi. 19, &c.

The Hebrew name of the stork, is strikingly characteristic of its disposition, signifying benignity or affection, for which it is remarkable, as is attested by the most unexceptionable witnesses.

Parkhurst has given an interesting description of the stork from the Inspector, a periodical paper ascribed to that eminent naturalist, Sir John Hill, which sets this feature in its character in a strong and beautiful light.

"The two parents feed and guard each brood; one always remaining on it, while the other goes for food. They keep the young ones much longer in the nest than any other bird; and after they have led them out of it by day, they bring them back at night; preserving it as their natural and proper home,

'When they first take out the young, they practise them to fly; and they lead them to the marshes, and to the hedge-sides, pointing them out the frogs, and serpents, and lizards, which are their proper food; and they will seek out toads, which they never eat, and take great pains to make the young distinguish them.' At the time of their return, after having visited some warmer climate during the winter months, this writer states, that 'it is not uncommon to see several of the old birds, which are tired and feeble with the long flight, supported at times on the back of the young; and the peasants speak of it as a certainty, that many of these are when they return to their home, laid carefully in the old nests, and fed and cherished by the young ones, which they reared with so much care during the spring before.'

To the protection which the stork affords her young, there is evidently an állusion in Job xxxix. 13: 'The wing of the ostrich is quivering or expanded: [but] is it the wing of the stork and its plumage? That is, is it, like that, employed in protecting and providing for the creature's offspring? No; for she (the ostrich) depositeth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them on the sand, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, and that the wild beast of the field may break them,' This leads us to notice the as

sertion of the Psalmist, that 'the fir trees are the house of the stork,' Ps. civ. 17.

Like the crane, the stork is a bird of passage; and to its periodical migration the prophet Jeremiah refers, ch. viii. 7. Shaw furnishes us with a proof of their surprising instinct in preparing for their journey, which is worthy of notice. 'It is observed of the storks, when they know their appointed time,' that, for about the space of a fortnight before they pass from one country to another, they constantly resort together, from all the circumjacent parts, in a certain plain; and there, forming themselves once every day into a douwanne, or council (according to the phrase of these Eastern nations,) are said to determine the exact time of their departure, and the place of their future abodes.'

THE Hebrew name of this curious bird is evidently taken from its manner of discharging the contents of its bag or pouch, for the purpose of satisfying its own hunger, or that of its young.

The Pelican is much larger than the swan, and something resembles it in shape and color. The principal difference, and that which distinguishes this bird from all others, is its enormous bill and extraordinary pouch. From the point of the bill to the opening of the mouth, there is a length of fifteen inches; and under the chap is a bag, reaching the entire length of the bill to the neck, and capable, it is said, of holding fifteen quarts of water. When empty, this pouch is not seen; but when filled, its great bulk and singular appearance may easily be conceived. The Pelican, says Labat, has strong wings, furnished with thick plumage of an ash color, as are the rest of the feathers over the whole body. Its eyes are very small when compared to the size of its head; there is a sadness in its countenance, and its whole air is melancholy; it is as dull and reluctant in its motions as the flamingo is sprightly and active. It is slow of flight; and when it rises to fly, performs it with difficulty and labor; nothing, as it would seem, but the spur of necessity, could make these birds change their situation, or induce them to ascend into the air: but they must either starve or fly. When they have raised themselves about thirty or forty feet above the surface of the sea, they turn their head with one eye downwards, and continue to fly in that posture. As soon as they perceive a fish sufficiently near the surface, they dart down upon it with the swiftness of an arrow eize it with unerring certainty, and store it up in their pouch. They then rise again, though not without great labor, and continue hovering and fishing, with their head on one side as before.

In feeding its young, the pelican squeezes the food deposited in its bag into their mouths, by strongly compressing it upon its breast with the bill; an action, says Shaw, which might well give occasion to the received tradition and report, that the pelican, in feeding her young, pierced her own breast, and nourished them with her blood.

The writer of the hundred-and-second psalm alludes to the lonely situation of the pelican in the wildernesss, as illustrative of the poignancy of his own grief, at witnessing the desolation of his country, and the prostration of her sacred altars.