THE COMMON CRANE. 405 



repairs to swamps and boggy morasses, where in spring it 

 builds a rude nest of reeds and rushes on a bank or stump 

 of a tree, and lays two eggs. As a feeder it may be called 

 omnivorous, so extensive is its dietary. Its note is loud 

 and sonorous, but harsh, and is uttered when the birds are 

 performing their flights as well as at other times. 



The Crane of the Holy Scriptures is most probably not 

 this species, which is rare in Palestine, but another, Grus 

 Virgo, the Crane figured on the Egyptian monuments, 

 which periodically visits the Lake of Tiberias, and whose 

 note is a chatter, and not the trumpet sound of the Cine- 

 reous Crane. In the north of Ireland, in Wales and 

 perhaps elsewhere, the Heron is commonly called a Crane. 



THE COMMOI^ HEROK 



ARDEA CINEREA. 



A crest of elongated bluish black feathers at the back of the head ; similar 

 feathers of a lustrous white hanging from the lower part of the neck ; scapulars 

 similar, silver grey ; forehead, neck, middle of the belly, edge of the wings, 

 and thighs, pure white ; back of the head, sides of the breast, and flanks, 

 deep black ; front of the neck streaked with grey ; upper plumage bluish grey ; 

 beak deep yellow ; irides yellow ; orbits naked, livid ; feet brown, red above ; 

 middle toe, claw included, much shorter than the tarsus. In young birds the 

 long feathers are absent ; head and neck ash-coloured ; upper plumage tinged 

 with brown ; lower, spotted with black. Length three feet two inches. Eggs 

 uniform sea-green. 



The Heron, though a large bird, measuring three feet in 

 length from the point of the beak to the extremity of the 

 tail, and four feet and a half in breadth from the tip of 

 one wing to the other, weighs but three pounds and a 

 half. Consequently, though not formed for rapid flight, 

 or endued with great activity of wing, its body presents so 

 large a surface to the air, that it can support itself aloft 

 with but a slight exertion. It is thus enabled, without 

 fatigue, to soar almost into the regions assigned to the 

 Eagle and Vulture ; and when pursued by its natural ene- 

 mies, the Falcons, to whom it would fall an easy prey on 

 account of the largeness of the mark which its body would 

 present to their downward swoop if it could only skim the 



