300 HISTORY OF 



husbandman for a share in the harvest. As they 

 are birds of passage, they are seen to depart and 

 return regularly at those seasons when their pro- 

 vision invites or repels them. They generally 

 leave Europe about the latter end of autumn, 

 and return in the beginning of summer. In the 

 inland parts of the continent they are seen cross- 

 ing the country in flocks of fifty or a hundred, 

 making from the northern regions towards the 

 south. In these migrations, however, they are 

 not so resolutely bent upon going forward, but 

 that if a field of corn offers in their way they 

 will stop a while to regale upon it : on such oc- 

 casions they do incredible damage, chiefly in the 

 night; and the husbandman, who lies down in 

 joyful expectation, rises in the morning to see 

 his fields laid entirely waste, by an enemy whose 

 march is too swift for his vengeance to overtake. 

 Our own country is free from their visits ; not 

 but that they were formerly known in this island, 

 and held in great estimation for the delicacy of 

 their flesh ; there was even a penalty upon such 

 as destroyed their eggs ; but at present they 

 never go so far out of their way. Cultivation 

 and populousness go hand in hand ; and though 

 our fields may offer them great plenty, yet it is so 

 guarded, that the birds find the venture greater 

 than the enjoyment, and probably we are much 

 better off by their absence than their company. 

 Whatever their flesh might once have been, 

 when, as Plutarch tells us, cranes were blinded 

 and kept in coops, to be fattened for the tables 

 of the great in Rome j or as they were brought 



