THE CRANE 235 



Willughby, whose Ornithology was published about a hundred 

 years later, says that Cranes were regular visitors in England, and 

 that large flocks of them were to be found, in summer, in the fens 

 of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Whether they bred in Eng- 

 land, as Aldrovandus states, on the authority of an Englishman 

 who had seen their young, he could not say on his own personal 

 knowledge. 



Sir Thomas Browne, a contemporary of Willughby, writes, in 

 his account of birds found in Norfolk : ' Cranes are often seen here 

 in hard winters, especially about the champaign and fieldy part. 

 It seems they have been more plentiful ; for, in a bUl of fare, when 

 the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met with Cranes 

 in a dish.' 



Pennant, writing towards the close of the eighteenth century, 

 says : ' On the strictest inquiry, we learn that, at present, the 

 inhabitants of those counties are scarcely acquainted with them ; 

 we therefore conclude that these birds have left our land.' Three 

 or four instances only of the occurrence of the Crane took place 

 within the memory of Pennant's last editor ; and about as many 

 more are recorded by YarreU as having come within the notice 

 of his correspondents during the present century. It would seem, 

 therefore, that the Crane has ceased to be a regular visitor to 

 Britain. It is, however, still of common occurrence in many parts 

 of the Eastern Continent, passing its summer in temperate 

 climates, and retiring southwards at the approach of winter. Its 

 periodical migrations are remarkable for their punctuality, it hav- 

 ing been observed that, during a long series of years, it has invariably 

 traversed France southward in the latter half of the month of Octo- 

 ber, returning during the latter half of the month of March. On 

 these occasions. Cranes fly in large flocks, composed of two lines 

 meeting at an angle, moving with no great rapidity, and alighting 

 mostly during the day to rest and feed. At other seasons, it ceases 

 to be gregarious, and repairs to swamps and boggy morasses, where 

 in spring it builds a rude nest of reeds and rushes on a bank or 

 stump of a tree, and lays two eggs. As a feeder it may be called 

 omnivorous, so extensive is its dietary. Its note is loud and 

 sonorous, but harsh, and is uttered when the birds are performing 

 their flights as well as at other times. 



The Crane of the Holy Scriptures is most probably not this species, 

 which is rare in Palestine, but another, Grus Virgo, the Crane 

 figured on the Egyptian monuments, which periodically visits the 

 Lake of Tiberias, and whose note is a chatter, and not the trumpet 

 sound of the Cinereous Crane. In the north of Ireland, in Wales 

 and perhaps elsewhere, the Heron is commonly called a Crane. 



A certain number of Cranes have been noticed in the Shetland 

 Isles, and some in the Orkneys. The latest seen in Ireland was in 

 1884, County Mayo. 



