THE CRANE KIND. 



195 



tence, they are easily satisfied with whatever 

 offers ; and their flesh often contracts a relish 

 of what has been their latest, or their prin- 

 cipal food. 



Most of the birds formerly described, have 

 stated seasons for feeding and rest : the eagle 

 kind prowl by day, and at evening repose ; 

 the owl by night, and keeps unseen in the 

 day-time : but 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 ap- 

 pear more assiduously employed, both in pro- 

 viding for their present support, and continu- 

 ing that of posterity. This is usually the 

 season when the insidious fowler steals in 

 upon their occupations, 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 nature with a warmth of constitution to fit 

 them for that cold element. They reside, by 

 choice, in the coldest climates : and as other 

 birds migrate here in our summer, their mi- 

 grations 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 summer, 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 num- 

 ber of these is very small ; and it is most pro- 

 bable that they are only some stragglers who, 

 not having strength or courage sufficient for 

 the general voyage, take up from necessity 

 their habitation here. 



In general, during the summer, this whole 

 class either choose the coldest countries to 

 retire to, or the coldest and the moistest part 

 of ours to breed in. The curlew, the wood- 

 cock, the snipe, the godwit, the gray plover, 

 the green and the long-legged plover, the 

 knot, and the turnstone, are rather the guests 

 than the natives of this island. They visit 

 us in the beginning of winter, and forsake us 

 in the spring. They then retire to the moun- 

 tains of Sweden, Poland, Prussia, and Lap- 

 land, to breed. Our country, during the sum- 

 mer season, becomes uninhabitable to them. 

 The ground parched up by the heat; the 



springs dried away ; and the vermicular in- 

 sects already upon the wing; they have no 

 means of subsisting. Their weak and deli- 

 cately pointed bills are unfit to dig into a 

 resisting soil ; and their prey is departed, 

 though they were able to reach its retreats. 

 Thus, that season when nature is said to teem 

 with life, and to put on her gayest liveries, is 

 to them an interval of sterility and famine. 

 The coldest mountains of the north are then 

 a preferable habitation ; the marshes there 

 are never totally dried up; and the insects 

 are in such abundance, that both above 

 ground and underneath, the country swarms 

 with them. In such retreats., therefore, these 

 birds would continue always ; but that the 

 frosts, when they set in, have the same effect 

 upon the face of the landscape, as the heats 

 of summer. Every brook is stiffened into 

 ice ; all the earth is congealed into one solid 

 mass ; and the birds are obliged to forsake a 

 region where they can no longer find subsis- 

 tence. 



Such are our visitants. With regard to 

 those which keep with us continually, and 

 breed here, they are neither so delicate in 

 their food, nor perhaps so warm in their con- 

 stitutions. The lapwing, the ruff, the red- 

 shank, the sand-piper, the seapie,the Norfolk 

 plover, and the sea-lark, breed in this coun- 

 try, and for the most part reside here. In 

 summer they frequent such marshes as are 

 not dried up in any part of the year ; the 

 Essex hundreds, and the fens of Lincolnshire. 

 There, in solitudes formed by surrounding 

 marshes, they breed and bring up their young. 

 In winter they come down from their retreats, 

 rendered uninhabitable by the flooding of the 

 waters, and seek their food about our ditches 

 and marshy meadow-grounds. Yet even of 

 this class, all are wanderers upon some occa- 

 sions ; and take wing to the northern cli 

 mates, to breed and find subsistence. This 

 happens when our summers are peculiarly 

 dry ; and when the fenny countries are not 

 sufficiently watered to defend their retreats. 



But though this be the usual course of na- 

 ture, with respect to these birds, they often 

 break through the general habits of their kind ; 

 and as the lapwing, the ruff, and the sand 

 piper, are sometimes seen to alter their man. 

 ners, and to migrate from hence, instead of 

 continuing to breed here ; so we often find the 

 wood-cock, the snipe, and the curlew, reside 

 with us during the whole season, and breed 

 their young in different parts of the country. 

 In Casewood, about two miles from Tun 

 bridge, as Mr Pennant assures us, some wood 

 cocks are seen to breed annually. The young 

 have been shot there in the beginning of Au- 

 gust ; and \vere as healthy and vigorous as 

 they are with us in winter, though not so \velJ 



