GRUID^. 287 



in Mid-Somerset, but the date is not given ; and Mr. Cecil 

 Smith, who subsequently investigated this story, discovered 

 that it was all a mistal^e, the bird having been probably 

 only a Common Heron ! But an undoubted specimen was 

 shot on May 14, 1863, near Deerness, Kirkwall, Orkney, 

 and the Common Crane has occurred more frequently of 

 late years in Orkney and Shetland than elsewhere in 

 Great Britain. The Northern line taken by some of the 

 Cranes on their migrations is not a little singular. The 

 single instance of the Balearic Crane, a native of Northern 

 and Western Africa, which occurred in the AVest of Scot- 

 land in Ayrshire was probably due to an " escape " ; but, 

 perhaps, can better be accounted for by " assisted passage." 

 And then, in August 1891, an example of the Siberian 

 Crane, a large white species whose habitat is Northern 

 and Central Asia, was shot on Barra, in the Outer Hebrides. 

 This bird is supposed to have escaped from a gentleman's 

 garden at Mario w in Bucks. 



CrauS. Grus communis^ Bechstein. 



A casual visitor, of exceedingly rare occurrence. 



We must go back at least three centuries to find a period when a few 

 Cranes are reported to have nested on the great fen lands in the Eastern 

 counties of England ; the extensive drainage of marshes, especially of the 

 Great Bedford Level, has long since so narrowed the area of any suitable 

 habitat in this kingdom for this most wary bird tliat it long ago became 

 what it is to-day, only a very rare occasional spring and winter visitor to 

 any part of the United Kingdom. The fact that the Common Heron is 

 so fre(]uently called the Crane has been the root of a considerable amount 

 of error with regard to the appearance of the real Crane in this country, 

 and in Devonshire the n.ime 'Cranmerc' for a moorland tarn no longer 

 existing has been a trap to some of the early ornithologists, who fancied it 

 took its name from the Vrane. But Cranmere has no connection either 

 with the true Crane or with the true Heron, which in our experience 

 schloni asfends to the more exposed and elevated bogs of Dartmoor, l)ut 

 simply means " the reservoir of waters," from two JJritisli words of that 

 signitication. 



In l)evonshire there is only the record of tlic fine Crane whicli wo liavt; 

 admired in Mr. E. H. Uodd's collection, and of another which was observed, 

 but not obtained, near the Slmt ; but in Somerset three exaniiiles liavo 



