COMMON CRANE. 531 



GBUS. Generic Characters. Beak longer than the head, straight, 

 strong, compressed, and pointed. Nostrils placed longitudinally in a , 

 furrow, large, pervious, closed posteriorly by a membrane. Legs long, 

 strong, naked above the joint; three toes in front; middle toe united to 

 the outer toe by a membrane ; hind toe articulated high up on the tarsus. 

 Wings moderate, rounded in form ; the first quill-feather shorter than the 

 second ; the third the longest in the wing. 



THOUGH at the present time only an occasional and very 

 rare visitor to this country, the Crane was formerly much 

 more frequent. Dr. Turner states that he had often seen 

 the young birds in our marshes. Sir Thomas Browne of 

 Norwich, who wrote in the time of Charles the Second, 

 says in his works, " Cranes are often seen here in hard 

 winters, especially about the champain and fieldy part. It 

 seems they have been more plentiful, for in a bill of fare, 

 when the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met 

 with Cranes in a dish." * In the Norfolk Household Book, 

 already quoted, under the articles on the Pheasant and 

 Great Bustard, I find three separate notices of Cranes; 

 the first for a Crane and vi Plovers, xxd. ; the second, 

 four Mallards and a Crane killed with the Crossbowe; 

 the third, item, on Thursday for a Crane vie?. ; while in 

 Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, as quoted at page 433, we 

 find that the price of a Crane in London was 10s. Leland, 

 in his Collectanea, includes in the bill of fare at the feast 

 of Archbishop Neville, two hundred and four Cranes ; and, 

 according to Sir David Lindsay, Cranes formed also part of 

 the bill of fare at a grand hunting entertainment, given by 

 the Earl of Athol to James the Fifth of Scotland and the 

 Queen Mother on the banks of the Loghaine, in Glen 

 Tilt. Ray mentions the winter visits of this large bird ; 

 and "Willughby, in an abridgment of some statutes relating 

 to the preservation of fowl, refers at page 52 to a fine of 

 twenty pence levied as a forfeit for every egg of a Crane 



Wilkin's edition, vol. iv. p. 314 Pickering, 1835. 



If M 



