3i8 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



feed chiefly on grain, and fenny seeds or bents." 

 No wonder, then, that they were esteemed good 

 eating, far superior in flavour to the Heron. 



Drayton, in his Polyolbion (25th song), describes 

 "the stately Crane" as a characteristic fen-bird in 

 the early part of the seventeenth century (1622) ; 

 and Sir Thomas Browne, writing towards the close 

 of the same century (about 1667) an account of the 

 birds of Norfolk, includes the Crane as " often seen 

 here In hard winters, especially about the champain 

 and fieldy parts " ; from which it would appear 

 that, at that date, this bird had ceased to breed in 

 England. "It seems," he says, "they have been 

 more plentiful ; for in a bill of fare, when the mayor 

 entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met with Cranes 

 in a dish." 



Willughby, in his Ornithology (1678), writing of 

 this bird, says : "They come often to us in England ; 

 and in the fen-countries in Lincolnshire and Cam- 

 bridgeshire there are great flocks of them " (a state- 

 ment repeated in the posthumously printed Synopsis 

 Avium of John Ray, 1 7 1 3 ; " but whether or no they 

 breed in England (as Aldrovandus writes he was 

 told by a certain Englishman " [Dr Turner above 

 mentioned], "who said he had often seen their young 

 ones), I cannot certainly determine, either of my 

 own knowledge, or from the relation of any credible 

 person." Headds: " The delicate taste of the flesh 

 and the musculous stomach are sufficient arguments 

 to evince that this bird feeds not at all upon fish, 

 but only upon herbs, grain, and seeds of divers 

 sorts, and it is likely upon insects too, as the 



