COMMON CRANE. ; 573 
the nest of a Curlew or of a Golden Plover on the Derbyshire moors. In 
Wolley’s time Germany was a terra incognita to English ornithologists, 
and to a great extent remains so still. But the accurate account which 
Naumann wrote of the breeding of the Crane in 1838 does not in the least 
degree detract from the merit of Wolley’s narrative in 1859. Wolley was 
one of the few ornithologists who possessed a keen appreciation of the 
poetry of bird-nesting, and was able, to a limited extent, to transfer some of 
the poetic feeling to his readers. I say to a limited extent, because there 
has not yet appeared a writer on this subject whose best. productions do 
not fall almost infinitely short of the reality. Wolley’s account of the 
breeding of the Crane is very charming. In the Arctic Regions, long 
before the mysterious tundra is reached, foretastes of it can be enjoyed. 
North of the Arctic circle the trees soon become dwarfed, the larches grow 
weird and stunted, birch and willow thickets show the presence of stagnant 
water, and large swamps, too wet for the growth of trees, occur, and lie 
like lakes in the forest, or lead on to rising ground at the foot of the fells. 
These swamps have all the brilliant flora of the tundra—the ground-fruits 
of many kinds, the pink Andromeda like an exotic heath, and the white 
aromatic Ledum being the most conspicuous. These treacherous-looking 
bogs are safe enough in early spring ; the mosquitoes are not yet born; a 
foot or so below the surface is a solid pavement of ice, which is also a pre- 
ventative against the malaria which is so dangerous in the southern breeding- 
grounds of the Crane. Wolley was able to camp out under the shelter of 
the larches, and conceal himself behind the clumps of birch and willow to 
watch the birds. At the end of May in these regions midnight is not even 
twilight; it is day, with the sun obscured fora moment. Birds are con- 
stantly to be seen and heard. Fieldfares perched above his head, Ruffs 
were holding high carnival on the moors ; from far in the distance came the 
cries of the Black-throated Divers, like the screams of tortured children ; 
he was able to recognize the birds which passed by the waft of their wings, 
and now and then he heard overhead the sweeping wave of great wings 
with which he was unfamiliar. The watching the female to the nest, her 
graceful walk, the dainty way in which she bent her breast to the eggs and 
subsided on the nest, the preening of her feathers, until at last she falls 
asleep, are all graphically described. Equally charming is his account of 
‘the taking of the eggs, the bird catching his eye and taking wing, and the 
behaviour of a pair of birds whose newly hatched young he discovered 
running amongst the sedgy grass. He found several nests, some empty 
and some with eggs; they were generally in wet places, and the wetter 
the place the larger was the nest, sometimes more than two feet across. 
Pieces of old egg-shells were found under the lining of one, showing 
that they sometimes breed in the same nest year after year. 
Two is the usual number of eggs laid, but in very rare instances three 
