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



we may have whispered too loud, for she soon raised her head. 

 I now wished to see how she would leave the nest, whether 

 crouchingly or not. I took a line not directly towards it, cur- 

 ving more upon it as I advanced, of course taking care to keep 

 my eyes in a diflFerent direction. When I believed that I was 

 just opposite, I looked, as I thought, ^"owards the place, which 

 might be about twenty paces off, but I did not at first recognize 

 the bird. She was a few feet from the exact spot I had expected, 

 and I unconsciously took her for a grey stone, till my eye turned 

 directly on her. I had then just time to mark her position with 

 her head drawn in between her shoulders, when, having caught 

 my glance, she rose steadily into the air. In one part of the 

 nest was a damp spot from the water of the marsh having soaked 

 through. The eggs now lay touching each other. When I 

 came to blow them, I found to my surprise that they were one 

 or two days sat upon. In 1855 this nest, as Ludwig informed 

 me, was robbed by a Fielfi'as {Gulo borealis). I had the plea- 

 sure of showing it, towards the end of the summer of the same 

 year, to my friend Mr. Alfred Newton, who thought the diffi- 

 culties of the bog fully repaid by the sight even of an empty 

 Crane's nest. We found on this occasion, on examining the 

 materials of the nest, old pieces of egg-shell, showing that it 

 was the same nest that had been used in previous years. 



I must not go into long particulars concerning the nest of 

 1854 in Kharto noma. I found the two eggs on the 22nd of 

 May, in a spot only two feet from the nest of the preceding 

 year. It consisted of not more than a handful or so of whitish 

 sedge grass, about twenty inches across and two or three inches 

 only above the level of the water of the submerged parts of the 

 marsh, close to the edge of which it was situated. There was a 

 kind of creeping moss about it, and one or two vei'y low-lying 

 shoots of sallow. 



It was placed in an open part of the middle of the south-east 

 wing of the marsh. I have a memorandum that there was not 

 then a leaf unrolled, the only visible signs of summer being a 

 kind of Carex coming into flower on the hummocks, and yet the 

 nights were quite as light as the day. I kept watch at the 

 distance of nearly half a mile; but unfortunately the smoke 



