CEANE 191 



Food. The Crane eats grain, insects, small birds, and 

 mammals. Mr. Saunders also mentions the tuber of the 

 sweet potato and water-melons. 



Nest. This species builds on marshy ground. The eggs 

 are greyish-brown with dark brown blotches and spots : 

 two constitute the clutch. Incubation begins in April or 

 May. 



This noble bird bred in the fens and marshes of East 

 Anglia until 1590 (Saunders). It is of considerable interest 

 to note that for several centuries, the bird and its eggs were 

 protected by law, and in 1780 it was decreed in the Fen Laws 

 that " no person should take any Swans' eggs or Cranes' egg, 

 or young birds of that kind, on pain of forfeiting for every 

 offence 3s. 4d.," " but," says Prof. Newton, " this was most 

 likely but the formal repetition of an older edict ; for in 

 1768 Pennant wrote that after the strictest enquiry he 

 found the inhabitants of those counties to be wholly un- 

 acquainted with the bird, and hence concluded that it had 

 forsaken our island." 



(geographical distribution. On its northern migration 

 the Crane reaches as far as Swedish and Finnish Lapland. 

 In these countries it breeds, but it also halts in great num- 

 bers in Central and Southern Europe to take up its breeding- 

 quarters in spring. In summer it migrates eastward over 

 the Asiatic Continent up to lat. 65 N. Its winters are spent 

 in Central Africa, India, China, Japan and other warm 

 countries. 



DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTERS. 



PLUMAGE. Adult male nuptial. General colour, slate- 

 grey, with darker striping down the front of the throat; 

 inner secondaries form a bunch of long downward-curved 

 blue-black plumes which sweep over the tail. 



Adult female nuptial. Lighter in colour than the male. 



Adult winter, male and female. Resembles the nuptial 

 plumage. 



Immature, male and female. Back and wings, greyish- 

 brown, the feathers being edged with a fulvous shade ; top 

 of head and back of neck, rusty-brown ; wing-plumes, very 

 short. 



BEAK. Geryish-green, with a little red near the base. 



FEET. Blackish-grey. 



IBIDES. Eeddish-brown. 



