184 GRUID^. 



which the well-known Pastor Laestadius had told me was the 

 most northern limit in Lapland of the breeding of the Crane. 

 It is in Swedish territory, being on the west side of the 

 frontier river, opposite the Finnish (Kussian) village of Yli 

 Muonioniska, in about lat. 68°, that is, some distance 

 within the Arctic Circle. This great marsh, called ' Iso 

 noma,' is mostly composed of soft bog, in which, unless 

 where the Bog-bean grows, one generally sinks up to the 

 knees, or even to the middle ; but it is intersected by long 

 strips of firmer bog-earth, slightly raised above the general 

 level, and bearing creeping shrubs, principally of sallow and 

 dwarf birch, mixed in places with Ledum palustre, Vac- 

 ciiiium uluiinosimi, Andromeda iiolifolia, Ruhus chamce- 

 morus, besides grasses, carices, mosses, and other plants. 

 There were also a few bushes or treelets of the common 

 birch, and these quite numerous in some parts of the marsh. 

 Walking along one of these strips, in a direction where 

 the pair of Cranes was said to be often heard, I came upon 

 a nest which I was sure must be a Crane's. I saw one bit 

 of down. The nest was made of very small twigs mixed 

 with long sedgy grass ; altogether several inches in depth, 

 and perhaps two feet across. In it were two lining-mem- 

 branes of eggs, and on searching amongst the materials 

 of the nest I found fragments of the shells. We had not 

 gone many yards beyond this place, when I saw a Crane 

 stalking in a direction across us amongst some small birch- 

 trees, now appearing to stoop a little, and now holding its 

 head and neck boldly up as it steadily advanced. Presently 

 the lads called out to me that they had found some young 

 Cranes. As I ran towards them, a Crane, not the one I had 

 previously seen, rose just before me from among some 

 bushes which were only two or three feet high, and not 

 twenty yards from the place where the lads had been shout- 

 ing at least for a minute or two. It rose into the air in a 

 hurried, frightened way. There was nothing just at the 

 spot where it got up, neither eggs nor young. I then went 

 up to where the two little Cranes were found. They were 

 standing upright, and walking about with some facility, and 



