THE CRANE KIND. 343 



these birds of the crane kind seem at all hours 

 employed ; they are seldom at rest by day, and 

 during the whole night season every meadow 

 and marsh resounds with their different calls to 

 courtship or to food. This seems to be the time 

 when they least fear interruption from man ; and 

 though they fly at all times, yet at this season 

 they appear more assiduously employed, both in 

 providing for their present support, and continu- 

 ing that of posterity. This is usually the season 

 when the insidious fowler steals in upon their oc- 

 cupations, and fills the whole meadow with terror 

 and destruction. 



As all of this kind live entirely in waters, and 

 among watery places, they seem provided by na- 

 ture with a warmth of constitution to fit them 

 for that cold element. They reside, by choice, 

 in the coldest climates; and as other birds mi- 

 grate here in our summer, their migrations hither 

 are mostly in the winter. Even those that reside 

 among us the whole season, retire in summer to 

 the tops of our bleakest mountains, where they 

 breed, and bring down their young when the 

 cold weather sets in. 



Most of them, however, migrate, and retire to 

 the polar regions ; as those that remain behind 

 in the mountains, and keep with us during sum- 

 mer, bear no proportion to the quantity which in 

 winter haunt our marshes and low grounds. The 

 snipe sometimes builds here, and the nest of the 

 curlew is sometimes found in the plashes of our 

 hills ; but the number of these is very small, and 

 it is most probable that they are only some strag- 



