58 GRUS COMMUNIS. 
account of the bird’s habits 1, had not done much in this way, and what he 
had written was hardly known to any in this country. Mr. Wolley himself, 
I am pretty sure, was not aware of it. Indeed it is most likely that no 
English naturalist since the days of William Turner, more than four hundred 
years before, had seen a Crane’s nest, while it is certain that if one had done 
so he had kept the information to himself. Though Evelyn in his Diary 
(17 October, 1671) credits Sir Thomas Browne with the possession of Crane’s 
eges taken in Norfolk, Sir Thomas only mentions the species as a winter 
visitant to that county. ] 
§ 3176. Fragment from hatched-out nest—I|so-uoma, 15 June, 
1853. 
This fragment of Crane’s egg was in an old nest in the marsh 
[Iso-uoma] opposite to Muonioniska. We took a man with us to 
shew the part occupied by Trana, or Kurki in Finnish. We found 
the marsh with a network of strips of firm ground, perhaps three or 
four feet wide, covered with dwarf birch a foot high, and straggling 
Andromeda, sallow and other things’, the spaces between these were 
only just passable with pieksu [half-boots], being very swampy 
and soft, with a few Carices or such plants growing upon them. 
Our man wanted to go back, as he was sure we should find 
nothing ; but we had not gone far before I came across, upon the 
strip on which I was walking, an old nest which I at once felt sure 
was a Crane’s, from the number of small sticks used in its construc- 
tion. Upon it were lying two large weather-beaten leathery egg- 
linings, and pulling the nest to pieces I found fragments of egg-shell, 
of which this is one. The sticks of which it was made were very 
small twigs, and were intermingled with grass. The nest, perhaps 
two feet across, was five or six inches in depth. We had not gone 
many yards beyond, when I saw a Crane stalking in a cross-direction 
among some small birch-trees, now appearing to stoop somewhat 
and then holding its head and neck upright, as it paced leisurely. 
1 (Some of his information was presumably from his own observations, though 
he says he did not live near enough to nesting Cranes to make out as much as he 
would have liked. Other particulars he obtained from Herr von Seyftertitz. It is 
curious that he describes the down of the newly-hatched young as being “grey” 
or “ grey-brown,’ whereas it is certainly tawny or pale chestnut in colour.—ED. | 
2 (In his ‘Ibis’ article, beside the Andromeda polifolia, My. Wolley also names 
Ledum palustre, Vaccinium utyinosum, and Rubus chamemorus. “There were 
also a few bushes or treelets of the common birch,” Betula alba, one of which 
served, as will be seen, a useful purpose subsequently.—Ep. | 
