316 WATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

themselves at the expense of these birds, and gratify a cruel
disposition, sometimes convey hens’ eggs into the stork’s
nest; and when the young are hatched, the cock on seeing
them of a different form from his own species, makes a
hideous noise, which brings a crowd of other storks about the
nest, who to revenge the disgrace which they imagine the
hen has brought upon her race, immediately peck her to
death. The cock in the meantime makes the heaviest lamen-
tation, as if bewailing his misfortune, which obliged him to
have recourse to such extreme punishment.”
A8tork’s From the same work we quote the following,
Revenge. which shows that though ordinarily placid and
placable the stork can cherish the feeling of revenge. “A
wild stork was brought by a farmer in the neighbourhood of
Hamburgh, into his poultry yard, to be the companion of a
tame one, which he had long kept there; but the tame stork
disliking a rival, fell upon the poor stranger, and beat him
so unmercifully that he was compelled to take wing, and with
some difficulty escaped. About four months afterwards, how-
ever, he returned to the poultry yard, recovered of his wounds,
and attended by three other storks, who no sooner alighted,
than they all together fell upon the tame stork, and killed it.”
ORDER IX. This order includes the Goose, the Duck,
The Geese. the Swan, the Teal, the Gull, the Petrel, the
Albatross, the Cormorant, the Pelican, the Penguin, the
Grebe, the Great Auk, the Puffin and other birds. The
first of these is found in all parts of the. world, geese
being especially cultivated in England for the sake of their
quills and feathers, and for the purposes of food. The
goose, far from being the foolish bird it is popularly esteemed,
often shows considerable intelligence, as well as great affection
for those who show it kindness.
The Many instances are recorded of gratitude shown
Gratitude of by geese towards those who have befriended
the Goose. them. Buffon once rescued a young gander from