"Sat a bird, unknown before, And, as if with human tongue, 'Mourn me not,' it said, or sung; 'I, a bird, am still your son, Happier than if hunter fleet, Or a brave before your feet Laying scalps in battle won. Friend of man, my song shall cheer Lodge and corn-land; hovering near, To each wigwam I shall bring Tidings of the coming spring; Every child my voice shall know In the moon of melting snow When the maple's red bud swells, And the wind-flower lifts its bells. As their fond companion Men shall henceforth own your son, And my song shall testify That of human kin am I.'" _Stork._ The _Lieblingsvogel_ of German children is the stork, who, as parents say, brings them their little brothers and sisters, and who is remembered in countless folk and children's rhymes. The mass of child-literature in which the stork figures is enormous. Ploss has a good deal to say of this famous bird, and Carstens has made it the subject of a brief special study,--"The Stork as a Sacred Bird in Folk-Speech and Child-Song" (198). The latter says: "It is with a sort of awe (_Ehrfurcht_) that the child looks upon this sacred bird, when, returning with the spring he settles down on the roof, throwing back his beak and greeting the new home with a flap of his wings; or when, standing now on one foot, now on the other, he looks so solemnly at things, that one would think he was devoutly meditating over something or other; or, again, when, on his long stilt-like legs, he gravely strides over the meadows. With great attention we listened as children to the strange tales and songs which related to this sacred bird, as our mother told them to us and then added with solemn mien, 'where he keeps himself during the winter is not really known,' or, 'he flies away over the _Lebermeer_, whither no human being can follow.' 'Storks are enchanted (_verwünscht_) men,' my mother used to say, and in corroboration told the following story: 'Once upon a time a stork broke a leg. The owner of the house upon which the stork had its nest, interested himself in the unfortunate creature, took care of it and attended to it, and soon the broken leg was well again. Some years later, it happened that the kind-hearted man, who was a mariner, was riding at anchor near the North Sea Coast, and the anchor stuck fast to the bottom, so that nothing remained but for the sailor to dive into the depths of the sea. This he did, and lo! he found the anchor clinging to a sunken church-steeple. He set it free, but, out of curiosity, went down still deeper, and far down below came to a magnificent place, the inhabitants of which made him heartily welcome. An old man addressed him and informed him that he had been the stork whose leg the sailor had once made well, and that the latter was now in the real home of the storks.'" Carstens compares this story with that of Frau Holle, whose servant the stork, who brings the little children out of the