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was preserved by Mr. Mitchell, and shown by him to the late Professor Macgillivray shortly 

 before his death : it was the only example of the species ever seen in the flesh by that excellent 

 ornithologist, and is now invested with a somewhat melancholy interest, as being the very last 

 bird he examined. An old Scots Act, passed in 1551, provides that the price of a Crane shall 

 not exceed five shillings, thus ranking it with the Swan in value. No act of the present day 

 would prevent collectors giving at least ten times that amount for a British-killed specimen." 



In Ireland it is, according to Thompson, " an extremely rare visitant." In Smith's ' History 

 of the County of Waterford,' published in the year 1745, the following passage appears : — " The 

 Crane (Grus), which is a bird of passage. During the great frost of 1739 some few Cranes 

 were seen in this country, but not since or before in any person's memory." The same author 

 in his ' History of the County of Cork,' published in 1749, remarks that " the Crane was seen 

 in this county during the remarkable frost in 1739 ; but they do not breed with us." In 

 March 1834 Mr. Glennon, bird-preserver, informed me that a Crane, then in the Museum of 

 the Eoyal Dublin Society, and seen by him in a fresh state, was shot in the county of Galway 

 about twenty-five years previously. By letter from Richard Chute, Esq., written in 1846, I was 

 assured that " a Crane was shot in Tralee Bay, about twenty years ago, by the Eev. John Chute, 

 now rector of Roscommon." My correspondent, though but young at the time, saw the bird ; he 

 states, on the additional authority of the shooters and others, that it was unquestionably the 

 " Crane." Mr. Harting also makes the following reference : — " In a ' Notice of animals which 

 have disappeared from Ireland during the period of authentic history,' the author, Dr. Scouler, 

 remarks, ' the Crane ( Grus cinerea) was formerly so plentiful that, according to Giraldus, flocks 

 consisting of a hundred individuals were extremely common.' The words of Giraldus are, ' in 

 tanta vero numerositate se grues ingerunt, ut uno in grege centum et circiter numerum frequenter 

 invenies.' " 



I may here mention that Mr. Cecil Smith informs me that " in Somerset of late years only 

 one specimen has occurred, and that a young bird of the year, which was shot by Mr. Haddon, 

 of Taunton, at Stotford, near Burnham, on the Bristol Channel, on the 17th of October, 1865. 

 This seems to have been rather a great year for British Cranes." 



It has been once obtained on the Faeroes, over which it occasionally passes during migration. 

 In Scandinavia are its head quarters during the summer season; and as regards its range in 

 Norway my friend Mr. Robert Collett informs me that " its chief habitat is in the large mosses 

 in the conifer-woods in the interior of the southern portions of the country. In these localities 

 it is common, and especially so in the mosses fringing Lake Mjosen, on Hedemarken, Osterdalen, 

 and in the southern portion of the Gudbrandsdale. Stray individuals are often met with north 

 of the Dovre ; but so far as I can ascertain, it has not been met with breeding in Nordland and 

 Finmark ; but it has been killed in the immediate proximity of the North Cape, and of late years it 

 has occurred several times on the Varanger fiord, and near the Russian frontier. It migrates to 

 and from Norway over the west coast of Sweden, and is therefore rare in western Norway. Flocks 

 of from ten to twenty individuals are almost annually seen near the Christiania fiord." To the 

 above I may add that Pastor Sommerfelt writes that it has occurred in the autumn in the Varanger 

 fiord, and has once been shot at Utsjok. In Sweden it arrives in March and April, spreads over 

 the wild morasses, chiefly those in the far north, where it breeds, and leaves again in August and 



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