220. POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

In Holland the stork is protected because it helps to
check the increase of reptiles in the low and marshy lands ;
the Tarks and Arabs treat it with great hospitality ; in Con-
stantinople the bird is so familiar, as to build in the streets.
It is very common in Asia, and Shaw mentions having seen
flights passing over Mount Carmel (in their migration from
Egypt), which were a mile in breadth, and took three hours
before they had all passed over the point of observation.

The food of storks consists of serpents, lizards, small fish,
and many noxious reptiles. Probably its interdiction by
Moses, as an article of diet for the Israelites (Leviticus xi.),
was owing in a great measure to the nature of its food,
which renders the flesh very rank and unpalatable; perhaps
also blended with a regard for its services in clearing the
land of such creatures, and the general esteem with which
its character was viewed.

The original word, which our translators have rendered
* stork,” is “ chasidah,” a name indicative of pity and be-
nignity, proving that the qualities of this bird were very
early noticed and admired; it is particularly abundant in
Egypt and the western parts of Asia, so that the Israelites
had favourable opportunities of becoming soquainted with
its peculiarities.