Grus communis. ^39 



found the two eggs on the 22nd of May, in a spot only two feet from the nest of the 

 preceding year. It consisted of not more than a handful or so of whitish sedge grass, 

 about twenty inches across and two or three inches only above the level of the water 

 of the submerged parts of the marsh, close to the edge of which it was situated. 

 There was a kind of creeping moss about it, and one or two very low-lying shoots of 

 sallow. 



It was placed in an open part of the middle of the south-east wing of the marsh. I 

 have a memorandum that there was not then a leaf unrolled, the only visible signs of 

 summer being a kind of Carex coming into flower on the hummocks, and yet the nights 

 were quite as light as the day. I kept watch at the distance of nearly half a mile ; but 

 unfortunately the smoke of my fire blew towards the nest. I saw a Crane go sailing 

 down, and afterwards the pair walking togecher, when they indulged in a minuet or 

 some more active dance, skipping into the air as the Demoiselles sometimes do in the 

 Zoological Gardens. Once or so I saw the beak of one pointed perpendicularly to the 

 sky, and a couple of seconds afterwards the loud trumpet struck my ear. It was two 

 or three o'clock in the morning before a bird came on to the nest, and even then she 

 was soon off, but again came back, sitting always with her head up. She left it very 

 wild, when at last we advanced from our bivouac. In this watch I saw and heard many 

 interesting birds, amongst them a Hen Harrier {Circus cyaneus). Also a pair of 

 Goshawks [Asiicr palumharius) dashed into a tree close over my head, the Crane still 

 visible in the distance. These eggs were rather smaller than the pair from Iso noma ; 

 two other nests which I have since obtained in Lapland have eggs as big as those which 

 are said to come from Germany and vary as they do. I had the pleasure, in August, 

 1867, of showing Mr. Frederick Godman and his brother Percy, a nest near Muonio- 

 vaara, from which the eggs were taken the same year, and a young one fledged from the 

 same marsh at least, if not from the same nest as in 1856. Their wading to this nest, 

 known to be empty, amidst swarms of greedy gnats, was a satisfactory proof of zeal. 



The locality was in a perfectly open part of the rather small marsh, which was 

 scarcely half an English mile across; so that the bird on its nest must have been 

 most conspicuous from every side. It was on a little elevation not more than one 

 stride across, and only raised a few inches above the water. The eggs, on the .Sth of 

 June were a good deal sat upon. The finders did not venture to leave them, both for 

 this reason, and because a large hawk was believed to be watching them. They 

 assured me that the birds did not cry, which agrees with my experience of their 

 behaviour when I was near the other two nests. 



I went the day after the eggs were taken to see the place. There was still ice enough 

 down in the bog to prevent me sinking beyond a certain moderate depth ; not so when 

 the Godmans tried it. The nest, as usual, was of the kind of sedgy grass which grew 

 in the same marsh near the nest. Some of the pieces had been pulled up by the roots. 

 It was twenty-seven inches across, and three or four inches in thickness, perfectly flat, 

 dripping wet in its lowest layers. The birds sailed over our beads to another part of the 

 marsh, where I examined them with my glass. 



It will be deduced from what I have stated that the Crane in Lapland is not 

 gregarious when it has once arrived at its summer quarters ; that as soon as it reaches 

 its breeding place, for the most part as soon as the snow is mainly off the ground, it 

 repairs its simple nest, and lays its two eggs ; for two were in the four nests that have 

 occurred to me, and two generally say those few natives who know anything about the 

 subject. The nest is neither large or concealed. The birds are silent towards intruders 

 on the eggs. The young run probably as soon as, or soon after, they are hatched, and 

 by some means are led or conveyed to a great distance by their parents, after having 

 been disturbed. They have a chesnutor tawny down ; no feathers visible in their wings 

 for some time. In Lapland as far as I have heard, in Sweden and Finland generally, 

 the Crane never breeds otherwise than on the ground. It seems not to visit Norway. 



