go APPENDIX ? ONG. “LIX. 
nature. As we went away I saw one of the Cranes alight where we 
had left the young. Later in the day I had a longing wish to have 
another look at my young friends. I thought of the old naturalists 
—who would have called them “ peepers ” I suppose—one?! of whom 
wrote of the Crane in our fens, ‘‘ ejus pipiones sepissimé vidi.’ To 
see them now-a-days twice in a life, and that not in England, would 
be a consolation. But it was not to be so; we came back to the 
spot where we had parted with them, rested for three or four hours 
round a stone that projected from the marsh, but we saw and heard 
nothing more of either old or young Cranes. In a morass with 
another name (which it took from a hill that overlooked it), 
“ Kharto uoma,” but which was only separated from “ Iso woma” by 
an interval of a mile or two of birch thicket, there were also Cranes, 
and I found their nest with the egg-shells lying in the water by it, 
and so many quill-feathers scattered about, that I almost feared 
some accident had happened to the sitting bird. 
The following year, 1854, on the 20th of May, I went with only 
Ludwig my servant-lad, to look for the Crane’s nest in “ Jso woma.” 
We saw no birds, and the spot where the nest had been the preceding 
year was not easy to find in so extensive a marsh. So we quartered 
our ground, working carefully up one strip of harder bog and down 
the next. After some hours of heavy walking I saw the eggs— 
joyful sight !—on an adjacent slip in a perfectly open place. The 
two eggs lay with their long diameters parallel to one another, and 
there was just room for a third egg to be placed between them. 
The nest, about two feet across, was nearly flat, made cliefly of 
light-coloured grass or hay loosely matted together, scarcely more 
than two inches in depth, and raised only two or three inches from 
the general level of the swamp. There were higher sites close by, 
and many of them would have seemed more eligible. 
It was just at the lowest edge of the strip, but so much exposed, 
that I thought I should be able to see even the eggs themselves 
trom a spot at a considerable distance, to which I proposed to go. 
There was a common story amongst the people of the country, that 
a Crane, if its nest were disturbed, would carry off its eggs under its 
wing to another place; so I purposely handled one of the eggs, and 
hung up a bit of birch bark on a birch tree beyond the nest, as 
a mark by which to direct my telescope. Then I went with Ludwig 
to a clump of spruce growing on some dry sandy land which rose out 
of the midst of the marsh. Here I made a good ambuscade of 
spruce boughs, crept into it, got Ludwig to cover me so that even 
the Crane’s eye could not distinguish me, and sent him to make 
a fire to sleep by on the far side of the wood, with strict orders on 
no account to come near my hiding-place. I kept my glass in the 
direction of the nest, but it was long before I saw anything stir. 
1 [William Turner in 1544, ‘ Avium praecipuarium ss Sas MESES & succincta 
Historia’ (p. 78). He wrote, however, “earum instead of “ ejus,” and the 
marginal rendering is “ pipers,” not “ peepers” (ef. ed. A. H. Evans, Cambridge : 
1903, p. 96).—Eb. ] 
- in 
“<= = 
ro 
