FOUND IN NORFOLK. 5 



great number of broad waters & warrens makes no 

 small number & more than in woodland counties. 



Cranes' are often seen here in hard winters especially 



the time he wrote extremely numerous, are generally called "Buzzards" 

 by the natives, and it will be noticed at p. 15 infra, that what is doubtless 

 intended for the Marsh Harrier is spoken of as an enemy to the Coots ; 

 also at p. 56, it is said that young Otters " have been found in the Buzzards 

 nests,'' a very likely circumstance with so fierce a bird, and one of which 

 I have an impression I have heard in recent years. The Hen Harrier is 

 now an extremely rare bird with us ; the Marsh Harrier still occasionally 

 nests in the Broads, and Montagu's Harrier now and then attempts to rear 

 a brood, but even should the parents succeed in escaping it is very seldom 

 they carry their young with them. Professor Newton has kindly favoured 

 me with the following additional interesting note on this bird. "The 

 Marsh Harrier is certainly the ' Balbushardus' of Turner (1544), which, 

 though he says it is bigger and longer than the ordinary Buteo, has 

 a white patch on the head and is generally of a dark brown (fuscus) 

 colour, hunting the banks of rivers, pools, and marshes, living by the cap- 

 ture of Ducks, and the black birds which the English call Coots (Coutas). 

 This he. Turner, has himself very often seen, and he describes its habits 

 correctly ; adding that it also takes Rabbits occasionally. Gesner, 

 1555, quotes Turner, but refers the Bald Buzzard to the Osprey (which he 

 figures), and so the mistake began. Certainly Willughby's Bald Buzzard 

 is the Osprey, but his book was not published when Browne wrote.'' 



' In the present day the Crane is only a rare straggler to this country 

 generally at the seasons of its migration ; that it was in times past abundant 

 in suitable localities there is ample evidence ; that it also bred in the fens 

 of the Eastern Counties there is no reason to doubt, but very little direct 

 evidence is forthcoming, therefore every fact bearing upon this point is of 

 value. Had Sir Thomas Browne written with the intention of publishing 

 his observations he would doubtless have told us much about this grand 

 bird, which would have been of the greatest interest to modern ornithologists, 

 but even the above brief remarks, as will be seen, are worthy of note. 



With regard to the occurrence of the Crane in the fens of East Angliawe 

 have the following evidence ; its fossil remains have been found in the peat 

 at Burwell, in Cambridgeshire, and in excavating the docks at Lynn. 

 Turner, in his "Avium Historia," Colonise, 1544, speaks of having seen 

 young Cranes in this country, and as he passed fifteen years at Cambridge, 

 it was probably in that neighbourhood that he met with them ; then again 

 there is the Act of Parliament, passed in 1534 (25th Hen. VIII. c. ii.), 

 prohibiting the taking of their eggs (amongst those of other species) under a 

 penalty of twenty pence. All this is well known, but being desirous to 

 ascertain whether any reference to the Crane was to be found in the records 



