NON-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 213 



for life, and there is evidence to show that it returns 

 year after year to one place to breed, and in many cases 

 uses the same nest each season. The breeding haunts 

 of this bird are swamps, near which open water occurs, 

 either in the vicinity of forests, or on treeless steppes and 

 tundras. The nest varies a good deal in size, the largest 

 structures usually being in the most swampy situations, 

 and the smaller nests on the comparatively dry hum- 

 mocks or mounds in the swamps. If the nest is small 

 it is little more than a trampled hollow, lined with dead 

 leaves of sedges, or bits of withered broken rush. If the 

 nest is large it is a heap of dead and half-rotten reeds, 

 sedges, and other aquatic herbage, and branches of heath 

 and twigs, as much as two feet across, the hollow holding 

 the eggs being lined with the finest and driest material. 

 The birds are wary enough at the nest, the male keeping 

 watch near at hand, and the female slipping off the 

 moment danger is detected. 



Range of egg colouration and inieasurement : 

 The eggs of the Crane are almost invariably two in 

 number, but very exceptionally three. They vary in 

 ground colour from brownish-buff to greenish-buff, 

 blotched and spotted with rich reddish-brown and pale 

 brown, and with underlying markings of gray. The 

 shell is rather rough in texture, pitted almost like tanned 

 pigskin, and without polish. On some specimens the 

 markings are mostly confluent and massed on the larger 

 end ; on others they form a zone round the larger end ; 

 others have the markings pretty evenly distributed over 

 the entire surface, and pale and indistinct ; whilst others 

 have most of the surface colour suffused over the surface, 

 here and there intermingled with very dark brown spots. 

 Average measurement, 3*9 inches in length, by 2*5 inches 

 in breadth. Incubation, apparently performed by the 

 female, is said to last a month. 



