Tntrodaation, 11 



"beefsteak birds," from a fancied resemblauce of the breast-cut, when 

 cooked as a beefsteak, to that coveted article of diet in the depths of the 

 " mofussil." 



It will doubtless have been remarked that Mr. Hurae suggests that tha 

 cranes upon which our ancestors feasted arrived in this country about thi 

 time of wheat-harvest ; whereas there is amply sufficient evidence of thei»> 

 having bred regularly in the fenny counties of England. {Vide YarrelPs 

 " History of British Birds," and Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk," vol. ii., 

 pp. 125, et sei/q.) Sir Thomas Brown {circd 1667), however, asserts that 

 " cranes are often seen here in hard ivinterx, especiiilly about tlie champian 

 and fenny parts." There must surely be some mistake about these birds 

 appearing in England as winter visitants ! Within less than a century 

 ago, as I learn from Mr. Cordeaux's work on the " Birds of the 

 Humber District" (p. 100), by the Fen laws, passed at tlie "court view 

 of free pledges and court-leet of the East, West, aud North Fens, with 

 their members, held at Revesby, 19th October, 1780," it was decreed that 

 " uo person shall bring up or take any swan's eggs, or crane's eggs, or 

 young birds of that kind, on pain of forfeiting for every offence 3s. kl." 

 This edict, remarks Mr. Cordeaux, looks very much like shutting the stable 

 door after the horse was stolen. " It appears somewhat singular," he adds, 

 " after the evidence of VVillughby, aud the antiquarian Gough, that cranes 

 should have nested in the fens so late as the end of the eighteenth century, 

 just previous to the di'ainage and inclosure of the West Fen !" On this 

 subject I refer the reader to the work of Mr. Cordeaux. 



I recognise only two genera of Gruidce, Baleariea and Grus, which 

 appear to me to be sufficiently distinguished from each other. Baleariea 

 is African, with two species respectively inhabiting west and south 

 (considered by Buffijn and others to be male and female of the same 

 species), and which are popularly known as the crowned cranes, in 

 reference to their very extraordinary sort of crest. Of the restricted 

 genus Grus four species have the tertiary plumes elongated and drooping, 

 and two of these are peculiar to Africa; another being common to Africa 

 and Asia, besides visiting and breeding in parts of the south-east of 

 Europe; while the fourth species so chai'acterised is the white-naped crane 

 {(.T. leucauchen) of Japan, in which the tertiaries are cousiderably more 

 elongated than in any that follow (as shown in the engraving of this 

 species), while its style of coloration approximates that of the Wattled 

 Crane (G. carunciilata.) of South Africa; both of these latter species being 

 akin to the Saras group, and in fact belonging to it; as does likewise the 

 Asiatic White Crane, all of which Saras group have the tertiaries incapable of 

 being raised at will, or at most to a very slight extent. The rest, consisting 

 of at least six species, are of the same sub-type as the common European 

 Crane, and, like it,has'e the tertiaries very broad, with cipen nnd discomposed 



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