Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/86

74 and a poet who lashed the worst profligacy of a debauched age styles it, "Pietaticultrix, gracilipes, crotalistria." The attention of this bird to its aged parents, in defending them against attack, and furnishing them with food, is a fact too well established to be doubted; but I cannot bear testimony to the elegance of its form, or the harmony of its voice. Its legs are long, and, though admirably fitted for its modes of life, extremely disproportionate to the size of its body; and the only sounds which I heard it emit were piercing and dissonant screams. I, however, regard the stork with favour, and am pleased with the prejudice which protects the pia avis of Greece and Rome.

At the distance of a mile from the Hague, is the house in the wood; a place of retirement which belonged to the stadtholder, but is now converted into a receptacle for the national cabinet of pictures, except a suite of apartments which are occupied by the keeper of a tavern of no very decent character. It reflects little credit on those who are charged with the care of the national domains, and from their functions must in some measure