THE CRANE 137 
feathers have to pass through in all that long nest- 
ing period is enough to soil and spoil everything. 
Their food is very varied. In captivity they 
seem as if they could, and would, eat anything, and 
I remember once seeing one trying to swallow a 
kid glove that had accidentally been dropped into 
its enclosure; possibly it thought it was some sort 
of dried frog! Insects, snails, frogs, and anything 
it can get from the water, as well as seeds and 
grasses, are its stock articles of diet. 
M. Maspero told me that in his opinion there 
was a notable diminution of their number and of 
the time they spend in Egypt every winter—a 
view I also take most decidedly with my own 
recollections of twenty-five years ago, when I saw 
them so frequently that then they were one of the 
commonest sights on the Nile, whilst in the 
winters of 1907-1908 I was only once able to make 
drawings of them on a sandbank near Minieh, and 
saw but two or three flocks during the whole time 
flying high in air. This is entirely owing to the 
great increase of large steamers which, passing up 
and down, disturb the quiet of the water. If one 
is fortunate enough to hear them calling one to 
another as they fly above your head, one will ever 
afterwards be able to identify them, even though 
18 
