/VIENEN SIND SAIN O)6  WeIDace 93 
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 uoma; 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 1857 of showing 
Mr. Frederick Godman and his brother Percy a nest near Muonio- 
vaara, from which 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 on every side. It was on 
a little elevation, not more than one stride across, and raised only a 
few inches above the water. The eggs on the 5th 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 ery, 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 head 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 
nor 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 chestnut or tawny 
down; no feathers visible in their wings for some time. In Lapland, 
and 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. 
April 4, 1859, Beeston, Nottingham. 
