70 THE CRANE 



lastingly staining its plumage crimson with the sacred 

 blood. 1 



XXXI 



The capture during last month of a rarer visitor than 

 either of the crossbills has been notified from county 



Armagh. The local newspapers report it as 

 The Crane ] 



a large grey bird, 'a fine specimen of the 



Danish stork.' Now the stork (Ciconia alba) is not 

 grey, but black-and-white, and is not a winter, but 

 a summer visitor to these latitudes. The bird in 

 question, which was taken on the ice on Barton 

 Lough, is probably not a stork, but a crane (Grus 

 cinerea), which in the sixteenth century commonly 

 bred in Norfolk, and in Ray's time came in large 

 flocks to Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire at uncertain 

 intervals. But for some reason unknown, this interest- 

 ing bird has taken offence with us, and its sonorous 

 note is no longer heard in our land. 



The blunder of an Irish newspaper in confounding 

 cranes and storks has at least two respectable pre- 

 cedents. The first was set by Rafael, who painted 

 cranes devouring fish in the foreground of the cartoon 



1 Mr. Tutt, however, does make occasional excursions into poetry, 

 which are even more remarkable than the occasions when he ignores 

 it. For instance, on p. 59 of the work quoted there is the following 

 delightful rhapsody on the subject of the skylark : 



' In the deep blue vault of heaven, when the summer sun shines 

 brightly over the fields, the words of the old German hymn 



" Hark ! hark ! the lark at Heaven's gate sings " 

 comes (sic) back to us in sober truth.' 



