346 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
Common CRANE, Grus cinerea. The present spe- 
cies, the Common Crane, although it appears to be 
now nearly extinct in England, does occasionally 
appear, and an instance of its occurrence was noted 
by me in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1865, nearly as fol- 
lows:—A Crane was shot on Tuesday, the 17th of 
October, by Mr. Haddon, of Taunton, at Stolford, 
on the Bristol Channel, between Burnham and 
Quantock’s Head: it measured four feet eleven 
inches in length from the toes to the tip of the bill, 
and six feet ten inches from tip to tip of the ex- 
tended wing: the weight was seven pounds and 
three-quarters. These particulars were given me by 
Mr. Haddon, as I had not an opportunity of ex- 
amining the bird in the flesh, though I have often 
_ seen it since in that gentleman’s collection, and have 
taken the following description from it. 
It is rather odd that in the very same year the 
occurrence of three other Cranes in Great Britain 
was recorded in the ‘ Zoologist’—one near Man- 
chester, in May, and two in the Shetland Islands, in 
July: before these the most recent occurrence which 
I can find noticed was in 1854, in which year Yarrell 
mentions one having been killed in Sussex, and he 
mentions several instances from time to time before 
then. In olden times it seems to have been more 
numerous, and is often mentioned as a favourite dish 
at great feasts. Mr. Newman, in his edition of 
Montagu’s Dictionary, quotes from the ‘ Ibis’ a very 
