502 GRUIDJl. 



GRUS. Generic Characters. Beak longer than the head, straight, strong, com- 

 pressed, and pointed. Nostrils placed longitudinally in a furrow, large, pervious, 

 closed posteriorly by a membrane. Legs long, strong, naked above the joint ; 

 three toes in front ; middle toe united to the outer toe by a membrane ; hind toe 

 articulated high up on the tarsus. Wings moderate, rounded in form ; the first 

 quill-feather shorter than the second ; the third the longest in the wing. 



THOUGH at the present time only an occasional and very 

 rare visiter to this country, the Crane was formerly much 

 more frequent. Dr. Turner states that he had often seen 

 the young birds in our marshes. Sir Thomas Browne 

 of Norwich, who wrote in the time of Charles the Second, 

 says in his works, " Cranes are often seen here in hard 

 winters, especially about the champain and fieldy part. 

 It seems they have been more plentiful, for in a bill of fare, 

 when the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met 

 with Cranes in a dish." * In the Norfolk Household Book, 

 already quoted, under the articles on the Pheasant and 

 Great Bustard, I find three separate notices of Cranes ; the 

 first for a Crane and vi Plovers, xxc?. ; the second, four 

 Mallards and a Crane killed with the Crossbowe ; the 

 third, item, on Thursday for a Crane, vie?. ; while in 

 Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, as quoted at page 366, we 

 find that the price of a Crane in London was 10s. Leland, 

 in his Collectanea, includes in the bill of fare at the feast of 

 Archbishop Neville, two hundred and four Cranes; and, 

 according to Sir David Lindsay, Cranes formed also part of 

 the bill of fare at a grand hunting entertainment, given by 

 the Earl of Athol to James the Fifth of Scotland and the 

 Queen Mother, on the banks of the Loghaine, in Glen Tilt. 

 Ray mentions the winter visits of this large bird ; and 

 Willughby, in an abridgment of some statutes relating to 

 the preservation of fowl, refers at page 52 to a fine of 

 twenty pence levied as a forfeit for every egg of a Crane or 



* Wilkin's edition, vol. iv. p. 314. Pickering, 1835. 



