CRANE. 179 



In former Editions of this work the Crane was classed in 

 the same order with the Herons ; but it is now generally 

 admitted by modern systematists that the Gruidce have no 

 real affinity to the Ardeidce. The young of the Herons 

 and Storks are nearly naked and helpless when hatched, 

 whereas the young of the Cranes are covered with a close 

 down, and they are able to run about soon after emerging 

 from the shell, like those of the Rails, the Bustards, and the 

 Plovers. In the structure, and also in the external colora- 

 tion of the shell, the eggs of some of the Cranes have con- 

 siderable resemblance to those of the Bustards ; and the two 

 families of the Gruidce and the Otididce are now generally 

 placed in the Order Alectorides. 



Though at the present time only an occasional and rare 

 visitor to the British Islands, the Crane was formerly much 

 more frequent. In a letter addressed to Boniface, Bishop 

 of Mayence, who died in 755, the Saxon King Ethelbert 

 requested him to send over two Falcons suitable for flying at 

 the Crane in Kent : i.e. Gyrfalcons. Giraldus Cambrensis, 

 who travelled in Ireland in 1183-86, in company with 

 Prince John, states that Cranes were then so numerous 

 that as many as a hundred or thereabouts might often be 

 seen in one flock ; and similar testimony is given by Eanul- 

 phus Higden (circa 1350). After the accession of John to 

 the throne, the entries in the court-rolls of his expenses 

 show that he was in the habit of flying Gyrfalcons at this 

 bird on his various journeys : seven Cranes having been 

 obtained in this manner at Ashwell in Cambridgeshire, in 

 December 1212, and nine in Lincolnshire on another occa- 

 sion.* Leland, in his Collectanea, includes in the bill of fare 

 at the feast of Archbishop Neville (temp. Edward IV.), two 

 hundred and four Cranes ; and, according to Sir David 

 Lindsay, Cranes were also served at a grand hunting enter- 

 tainment given by the Earl of Athol to James V. of Scot- 

 land and the Queen Mother, in Glen Tilt. In the ' Household 

 Book' of the fifth Earl of Northumberland (1512), occurs 



* J. E. Harting, 'The Field,' December 23rd, 1882, in a very interesting 

 article on the early records of this bird. 



