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ID 



which might be about twenty paces off; but I did not at first recognize the bird. She was a few 

 feet from the exact spot I had expected ; and I unconsciously took her for a grey stone, till my 

 eye turned directly on her. I had then just time to mark her position with her head drawn in 

 between her shoulders, when, having caught my glance, she rose steadily into the air. In one 

 part of the nest was a damp spot from the water of the marsh having soaked through. The 

 eggs now lay touching each other. When I came to blow them, I found to my surprise that 

 they were one or two days sat upon. In 1855 this nest, as Ludwig informed me, was robbed by 

 a Fielfras (Gulo borealis). I had the pleasure of showing it, towards the end of the summer of 

 the same year, to my friend Mr. Alfred Newton, who thought the difficulties of the bog fully 

 repaid by the sight even of an empty Crane's nest. We found "on this occasion, on examining 

 the materials of the nest, old pieces of egg-shell, showing that it was the same nest that had 

 been used in previous years. 



" I must not go into long particulars concerning the nest of 1854 in Kharto noma. I found 

 the two eggs on the 22nd of May, in a spot only two feet from the nest of the preceding year. 

 It consisted of not more than a handful or so of whitish sedge grass, about twenty inches across 

 and two or three inches only above the level of the water of the submerged parts of the marsh, 

 close to the edge of which it was situated. There was a kind of creeping moss about it, and one 

 or two very low-lying shoots of sallow. 



" It was placed in an open part of the middle of the south-east wing of the marsh. I have 

 a memorandum that there was not then a leaf unrolled, the only visible signs of summer being a 

 kind of C'arex coming into flower on the hummocks ; and yet the nights were quite as light as the 

 day. I kept watch at the distance of nearly half a mile ; but unfortunately the smoke of my fire 

 blew towards the nest. I saw a Crane go sailing down, and afterwards the pair walking 

 together, when they indulged in a minuet or some more active dance, skipping into the air 

 as the Demoiselles sometimes do in the Zoological Gardens. Once or so I saw the beak of one 

 pointed perpendicularly to the sky ; and a couple of seconds afterwards the loud trumpet struck 

 my ear. It was two or three o'clock in the morning before a bird came on to the nest ; and even 

 then she was soon off, but again came back, sitting always with her head up. She left it very 

 wild when at last we advanced from our bivouac. In this watch I saw and heard many inter- 

 esting birds, amongst them a Hen-Harrier (Circus cyaneus). Also a pair of Goshawks (Astur 

 falumbarms) dashed into a tree close over my head, the Crane still visible in the distance. 

 These eggs were rather smaller than the pair from Iso noma; two other nests which I have 

 since obtained in Lapland have eggs as big as those which are said to come from Germany, and 

 vary as they do. I had the pleasure in August 1857 of showing Mr. Frederick Godman and his 

 brother Percy a nest near Muonio-vaara, from which eggs were taken the same year, and a 

 young one fledged, from the same marsh at least, if not from the same nest as in 1856. Their 

 wading to this nest, known to be empty, amidst swarms of greedy gnats, was a satisfactory proof 

 of zeal. 



" The locality was in a perfectly open part of the rather small marsh, which was scarcely 

 half an English mile across ; so that the bird on its nest must have been most conspicuous from 

 every side. It was on a little elevation, not more than one stride across, and raised only a few 

 inches above the water. The eggs on the 5 th of June were a good deal sat upon. The finders 



