GREY CRANE. 23 



alighted, whether for food or for sleep, one of them acts as 

 sentinel, takes note of what is going on, and gives warning 

 by a cry the purpose of which is understood by his com- 

 panions, the whole flock taking to flight should there be 

 apparent danger. They nestle in the low grounds and 

 marshes of the northern tracts, and lay only two eggs. The 

 young, it is said, while yet unfledged, can run with such 

 speed that a man cannot overtake them, and they are fed by 

 their parents until they have grown up, and are able to fly." 

 — Valmont Bomarc. 



The flesh of this bird is said to be firm and tough, 

 although it was held in estimation by the Romans, Avho 

 fattened it in their aviaries after putting out its eyes. In 

 England, where the species was formerly abundant in the 

 fen districts, its flesh appears to have been much esteemed. 

 Although Cranes are said to have formerly bred in the fens, 

 they are now of extremely rare occurrence in England, not 

 so many as half-a-dozen individuals being recorded as having 

 been killed there within these forty years. Dr. Fleming, in 

 his History of British Animals, records its occurrence in 

 Shetland: — "A small flock appeared, during harvest, in 

 1807, in Tingwall, Zetland, as I was informed by the Rev. 

 John Turnbull, the worthy minister of the parish, who added 

 that they fed on grain." Mr. J. Wolley gives an account of 

 one that frequented Shetland for several months in the 

 summer and autumn of 1848, and states that several years 

 previously one was shot in South Ronaldsha, one of the 

 Orkneys. Mr. Dunn, in his Ornithologists' Guide to Orkney 

 and Shetland, says : — " This bird is an occasional visitor in 

 severe winters or stormy weather : two examples were shot 

 in Shetland in the interval between my first and second 

 visits— 1831 and 1833." 



Young. — According to M. Temminck, " the young, before 

 their second autumnal moult, have no bare space on the top 

 of the head, or rather have it scarcely perceptible. The 

 blackish-grey colour of the fore part of the neck and the 

 nape does not exist, or is merely indicated by longitudinal 

 spots." 



