178 Idylls of the Field, 



bird long formed a Christmas dish on the table of the 

 Sovereign. 



Three hundred years later there was still a statute for 

 the protection of its eggs, but since that time, as mere 

 and marshland have been drained and tilled, the crane 

 has retired before the conquering share. 



Now, like the great bustard — the story of whose 

 banishment is of much later date — it is an exile and a 

 stranger. 



Of other birds that found favour in Tudor times, the 

 heron and the swan still hold their ground. The 

 latter, now only a visitor, has long ceased to make its 

 nest with us, but its flying visits are neither few nor far 

 between. 



The former is a resident still ; more than a hundred 

 heronries remain scattered up and down in England, 

 and there are few low-lying shores where herons do not 

 stalk in stately fashion by the falling tide like the 

 ghosts of vanished friars. 



The swan is seldom killed for the table — less per- 

 haps from its demerits than its rarity. 



The heron, on the other hand, except when young, 

 and doctored with powerful condiments, has a rank 

 and fishy flavour, and its disuse as an article of diet 

 and its removal from the game list must be regarded 

 as marking an improvement in the national taste. 



The bird of Yule of our time has no such history to 

 look back on. Somewhere about the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, while the crane and the bustard were 



