THE CRANE 235 
Willughby, whose Ovnithology was published about a hundred 
years later, says that Cranes were regular visitors in England, and 
that large flocks of them were to be found, in summer, in the fens 
of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Whether they bred in Eng- 
land, as Aldrovandus states, on the authority of an Englishman 
who had seen their young, he could not say on his own personal 
knowledge. 
Sir Thomas Browne, a contemporary of Willughby, writes, in 
his account of birds found in Norfolk: ‘ Cranes are often seen here 
in hard winters, especially about the champaign and fieldy part. 
It seems they have been more plentiful ; for, in a bill of fare, when 
the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met with Cranes 
in a dish.’ 
Pennant, writing towards the close of the eighteenth century, 
says: ‘On the strictest inquiry, we learn that, at present, the 
inhabitants of those counties are scarcely acquainted with them ; 
we therefore conclude that these birds have left our land.’ Three 
or four instances only of the occurrence of the Crane took place 
within the memory of Pennant’s last editor; and about as many 
more are recorded by Yarrell as having come within the notice 
of his correspondents during the present century. It would seem, 
therefore, that the Crane has ceased to be a regular visitor to 
Britain. It is, however, still of common occurrence in many parts 
of the Eastern Continent, passing its summer in temperate 
climates, and retiring southwards at the approach of winter. Its 
periodical migrations are remarkable for their punctuality, it hav- 
ing been observed that, during a long series of years, it has invariably 
traversed France southward in the latter half of the month of Octo- 
ber, returning during the latter half of the month of March. On 
these occasions, Cranes fly in large flocks, composed of two lines 
meeting at an angle, moving with no great rapidity, and alighting 
mostly during the day to rest and feed. At other seasons, it ceases 
to be gregarious, and 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 Cinereous Crane. In the north of Ireland, in Wales 
and perhaps elsewhere, the Heron is commonly called a Crane. 
A certain number of Cranes have been noticed in the Shetland 
Isles, and some in the Orkneys. The latest seen in Ireland was in 
1884, County Mayo. 
