no CRANE 



for in 1768 Pennant "WTOte that after the strictest enquiry he found 

 the inhabitants of those counties to be wholly unacquainted with 

 the bii-d, and hence concluded that it had forsaken our island. The 

 Crane, however, no doubt then appeared in Britain, as it does now, 

 at uncertain intervals and in imwonted places, shewing that the 

 examples occurring here (which usually meet the hostile reception 

 commonly accorded to strange visitors) have strayed from the 

 migrating bands whose movements have been remarked from almost 

 the earliest ages. Indeed, the Crane's aerial journeys are of a very 

 extended kind ; and on its way from beyond the borders of the 

 Tropic of Cancer to within the Arctic Circle, or on the retm^n- 

 voyage, its flocks may be descried passing ovei-head at a marvellous 

 height, or halting for rest and refreshment on the wide meadows 

 that border some great river,^ while the seeming order with which 

 its ranks are marshalled during flight has long attracted atten- 

 tion. The Crane takes up its ivinter-quarters under the burning 

 sun of Central Africa and India, but early in spring retm-ns north- 

 ward. Not a few examples reach the chill polar soils of Lapland 

 and Siberia, but some tarry in the south of Europe and breed in 

 Spain, and, it is supposed, in Turkey. The greater number, how- 

 ever, occupy the intermediate zone and pass the summer in Eussia, 

 North Germany, and Scandinavia. Soon after their arrival in these 

 countries the flocks break up into pairs, whose nuptial ceremonies 

 are accompanied by loud and frequent trumpetings, and the respec- 

 tive breeding-places of each are chosen. 



The nest is formed with little art on the ground in large open 

 marshes, Avhere the herbage is not very high — a tolerably dry spot 

 being selected and used apparently year after year. Here the eggs, 

 which are of a rich brown colour with dark spots, and always two 

 in number, are laid. The young are able to run soon after they 

 are hatched, and are at first clothed with tawny down.- In the 

 course of the summer they assume nearly the same grey plumage 

 that their parents wear, except that the elongated plumes, which 

 in the adults form a graceful covering of the hinder parts of 

 the body, are comparatively undeveloped, and the clear black, 

 white, and red (the last being due to a patch of papillose 

 skin of that colour) of the head and neck are as yet indistinct. 

 Duiing this time they keep in the marshes, but as autumn 

 approaches the diff"erent families unite by the rivers and lakes, and 

 ultimately form the enormous bands which after much more 

 trumpeting set out on their southward journey. 



^ A beautiful picture, representing a flock of Cranes resting by the Rhine, is 

 to be seen in Mr. Wolf's Zoological Sketches. 



2 A paper "On the Breeding of the Crane in Lapland" {Ibis, 1859, pp. 

 191-198), by the late Mr. John Wolley, is one of the most pleasing contributions 

 to Natural History ever written. 



