350 



14 



did not venture to leave them, both for this reason and because a large Hawk was believed to 

 be watching them. They assured me that the birds did not cry, which agrees with my experience 

 of their behaviour when I was near the other two nests. 



" I went the day after the eggs were taken, to see the place. There was still ice enough 

 down in the bog to prevent me sinking beyond a certain moderate depth; not so when the 

 Godmans tried it. The nest, as usual, was of the kind of sedgy grass which grew in the same 

 marsh, near the nest. Some of the pieces had been pulled up by the roots. It was twenty-seven 

 inches acro'ss, and three or four inches in thickness, perfectly flat, dripping wet in its lowest 

 layers. The birds sailed over our heads to another part of the marsh, where I examined them 

 with my glass. 



" It will be deduced from what I have stated that the Crane in Lapland is not gregarious 

 when it has once arrived at its summer quarters — that as soon as it reaches its breeding-place, 

 for the most part as soon as the snow is mainly off the ground, it repairs its simple nest, and lays 

 its two eggs ; for two were in the four nests that have occurred, to me, and two generally say 

 those few natives who know any thing about the subject. The nest is neither large nor con- 

 cealed. The birds are silent towards intruders on the eggs. The young run probably as soon 

 as, or soon after, they are hatched, and by some means are led or conveyed to a great distance 

 by their parents after having been disturbed. They have a chestnut or tawny down, no feathers 

 visible in their wings for some time. In Lapland, and, as far as I have heard, in Sweden and 

 Finland generally, the Crane never breeds otherwise than on the ground." 



Mr. Wolley in the above article further states that " it does not seem to visit Norway." But, 

 as before recorded, it is not uncommon there ; and Mr. Collett also writes that " for breeding- 

 purposes it always in Norway prefers the isolated mosses in the conifer-woods, rarely at any 

 considerable elevation on the fells ; it is very wary during the breeding-season ; and the nest 

 is most difficult to find. Sometimes, however, the birds will boldly defend their eggs or young ; 

 and I once got an egg from a little boy who was attacked by one of the old birds with such 

 fury that he was compelled to defend himself with a large stick. During this battle he dropped 

 and broke one of the two eggs. In Norway its breeding-time is about the middle of June. One 

 of my friends found a nest close to the town of Lillehammer, at Mjosen, on the 22nd of June, 

 1870 ; it only contained one egg, which measured 102J by 67 millimetres. Another large egg 

 taken at Lojten, in Hedemarken, now in my own collection, measured 109 by 58 millimetres." 

 Dr. E. Rey, writing to me respecting the eggs of the Crane, says : — " With reference to the 

 systematic position of the Cranes I am, for oological seasons, inclined to place them close to the 

 Bustards, particularly the African Bustards. Otis caffra, for instance, is evidently a link between 

 Otis and Grus ; and biological peculiarities and anatomical structure justify the connexion ; they 

 have little in common with the Storks, and nothing at all with the Herons. I have received the 

 eggs of this bird from Sweden, Finland, North Russia, Siberia, Pomerania, Mark Brandenburg, 

 Silesia, and South Russia. The nesting-time in Germany is during the latter half of April ; the 

 sittings consist invariably of two eggs. I find the average size of twelve eggs to be 97T by 60 - 8 

 millimetres, the two largest measuring 100-5 by 62 and 98'5 by 63 millimetres, and the two 

 smallest 92'5 by 60'5 and 95 by 58 millimetres." 



I have in my collection eggs of the Crane which I obtained when in Northern Finland, and 



