192 Mr. J. Wolley, jun., on the 



also a few bushes or treelets of the comrnou birch, and these 

 quite numerous in some parts of the marsh. 



Walking along one of these strips, in a direction where the 

 pair of Cranes was said to be often heard, I came upon a nest 

 which I was sure must be a Crane's. I saw one bit of down. The 

 nest was made of very small twigs mixed with long sedgy grass ; 

 altogether several inches in depth, and perhaps two feet across. 

 In it were two lining-membranes of egg. , and on searching 

 amongst the materials of the nest I found fragments of the 

 shells.' We had not gone many yards beyond this place, when 

 I saw a Crane stalking in a direction across us amongst some 

 small birch trees, now appearing to stoop a little, and now 

 holding its head and neck boldly up as it steadily advanced. 

 Presently the lads called out to me that they had found some 

 young Cranes. As I ran towards them, a Crane, not the one I 

 had previously seen, rose just before me from among some 

 bushes which were only two or three feet high, and not twenty 

 yards from the place where the lads had been shouting at least 

 for a minute or two. It rose into the air in a hurried, frightened 

 way. There was nothing just at the spot where it got up, 

 neither eggs nor young. I then went up to where the two little 

 Cranes were found. They were standing upright and walk- 

 ing about with some facility, and making a rather loud " cheep- 

 ing " cry. They seemed as if they could have left such eggs as 

 Cranes were supposed to lay only a very few days. I say supposed, 

 for in England we know nothing of the eggs which are called 

 Cranes', but which may have come from any part of the world. 

 They were straightly made little things, short in the beak, livid 

 in the eye, thick in the knees, covered with a moderately long 

 chestnut or tawny-coloured down, darker on the upper parts, 

 softening away into paler underneath. As I fondled one of 

 them it began to peck playfully at my hands and legs, and 

 when at length I rose to go away, it walked after me, taking 

 me as I supposed for one of its long-legged parents. I had 

 only just before been plucking from it some bits of down to 

 keep ; for, valuable as I knew it to be in a natural-history point 

 of view, I could not make up my mind to take its life. As soon 

 as I saw its inclination to follow, I took to double-quick time, 



