THE SARUS 37 



I can cite plenty of authority for this statement. 

 There is, in particular, no less a personage than "Robert 

 Tanner, Gent. Practitioner in Astrologie and Physic." 

 " The cranes," he writes, " when they fly out of Cilicia, 

 over the mountain Taurus, carried in their mouths a 

 pebble stone, lest by their chattering they should be 

 ceased upon by eagles." 



The cranes had yet another use for their stones. 

 When the main body were resting at night, sentinels 

 were posted to guard against surprise, so that the com- 

 pany could go to sleep in security. To ensure necessary 

 vigilance, the sentinels stood on one foot and held in the 

 other a large stone. If they inadvertently nodded, 

 their muscles relaxed and the stone dropped. This, of 

 course, used to wake them up. Even Alexander the 

 Great was glad to learn a lesson from the cranes. He 

 used to go to roost with, not a stone in his hands, but a 

 silver ball, as more befitting his royal dignity. On the 

 slightest movement the ball would fall and he wake up. 

 Thus it was that he never overslept himself. We do 

 not do such heroic things nowadays ; nor do cranes. 



Cranes are birds which will not stand nonsense. The 

 pigmies used to go egg-collecting among them ; the 

 result of this was, to translate Homer : 



When inclement winters vex the plain, 



With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain, 



To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly, 



With noise and order, through the midway sky : 



To pigmy nations wound and death they bring. 



Notice that as the cranes were on the war-path there 

 was no necessity for them to fill their mouths with 



