COMMON CRANE. 573 



the nest o£ a Curlew or of a Golden Plover on the Derbyshire moors. In 

 WoUey's time Germany was a terra incognita to English ornithologists, 

 and to a great extent remains so still. But the accurate account which 

 Naumann wrote of the breeding of the Crane in 1838 does not in the least 

 degree detract from the merit of Wolley's narrative in 1859. WoUey was 

 one of the few ornithologists who possessed a keen appreciation of the 

 poetry of bird-nesting, and was able, to a limited extent, to transfer some of 

 the poetic feeling to his readers. I say to a limited extent,, because there 

 has not yet appeared a writer on this subject whose best productions do 

 not fall almost infinitely short of the reality. Wolley's account of the 

 breeding of the Crane is very charming. In the Arctic Regions, long 

 before the mysterious tundra is reached, foretastes of it can be enjoyed. 

 North of the Arctic circle the trees soon become dwarfed, the larches grow 

 weird and stunted, birch and willow thickets show the presence of stagnant 

 water, and large swamps, too wet for the growth of trees, occur, and lie 

 like lakes in the forest, or lead on to rising ground at the foot of the fells. 

 These swamps have all the brilliant flora of the tundra — the ground-fruits 

 of many kinds, the pink Andromeda like an exotic heath, and the white 

 aromatic Ledum being the most conspicuous. These treacherous-looking 

 bogs are safe enough in early spring ; the mosquitoes are not yet born ; a 

 foot or so below the surface is a soUd pavement of ice, which is also a pre- 

 ventative against the malaria which is so dangerousin the southern breeding- 

 grounds of the Crane. Wolley was able to camp out under the shelter of 

 the larches, and conceal himself behind the clumps of birch and willow to 

 watch the birds. At the end of May in these regions midnight is not even 

 twilight ; it is day, with the sun obscured for a moment. Birds are con- 

 stantly to be seen and heard. Fieldfares perched above his head, RufEs 

 were holding high carnival on the moors ; from far in the distance came the 

 cries of the Black-throated Divers, like the streams of tortured children ; 

 he was able to recognize the birds which passed by the waft of their wings, 

 and now and then he heard overhead the sweeping wave of great wings 

 with which he was unfamiliar. The watching the female to the nest, her 

 graceful walk, the dainty way in which she bent her breast to the eggs and 

 subsided on the nest, the preening of her feathers, until at last she falls 

 asleep, are all graphically described. Equally charming is his account of 

 the taking of the eggs, the bird catching his eye and taking wing, and the 

 behaviour of a pair of birds whose newly hatched young he discovered 

 running amongst the sedgy grass. He found several nests, some empty 

 and some with eggs ; they were generally in wet places, and the wetter 

 the place the larger was the nest, sometimes more than two feet across. 

 Pieces of old egg-shells were found under the lining of one, showing 

 that they sometimes breed in the same nest year after year. 



Two is the usual number of eggs laid, but in very rare instances three 



