SECTION III. 

 WATER BIRDS 



THE CRANE. 



THIS bird is now unknown in England, and the accounts of its 

 size which are furnished by naturalists and travellers vary exceed*- 

 ingly. Willoughby and Pennant make it from five to six feet long, 

 from the beak to the tail ; and others state that it is above five feet 

 high. On the contrary, Bresson describes it as something less than 

 the brown stork, about three feet high, and about four from the beak 

 to the tail. The latter writer is generally admitted to be the most 

 correct ; although the one he describes may possibly have been a 

 small bird. The figure of the crane is tall and slender, with a long 

 neck, and long legs. It is very social in its habits, and usually lives 

 in flocks amounting to fifty or sixty in number. 



Cranes are birds of passage, and they are seen to depart and re- 



