THE COMMON CRANE. 25 
had stood. It was a minute or two before we quite realized 
what had happened ; the ground was the stiff, clayey, river soil, 
damp, so far that one sank about three to four inches into it in 
walking ; the Crane had fallen dack downwards, the shoulders 
first striking the ground, and was firmly bedded in the clay. 
We pulled it out and found the basin-like depression, as far as 
I could judge in the dark, feeling the place carefully, fully 
eight inches deep in the deepest part. I had only a thin grey 
tweed smoking cap on, and had I not started back that step, I 
fancy that our Cranes would have had to find another historian. 
When feeding they are wary birds, almost always posting 
sentinels and rarely to be approached within gun shot, without 
a careful stalk ; but like all long-necked birds a single shot in 
the neck drops them, and in parts of the country, as in many 
places in the Punjab and Rajputana, where they have not 
recently been shot at, you may, with a native blanket over your 
head, approach within sixty or seventy yards, by walking as if 
you meant to pass them, when a heavy duck gun, with wire 
cartridge and very large shot, will generally drop three or four 
out of the flock as they rise. I have killed as many as seven 
with one shot thus. As a rule, however, on the land, a small- 
bore rifle is to be preferred, and they often stand so thick that 
a single bullet secures two or even three. 
But when you approach them by water, drifting down on them 
in a small native boat, such as they continually see passing, you 
and every one in the boat lying quiet, and only one man wad- 
ing behind the boat, guiding it and hidden by it, you may get 
’ as close as you like to the outermost files, fire your big gun 
into the densest patch distant from fifty to seventy yards, 
and knock over three or four more of the closer ones with your 
ordinary doubles. 
I have thus killed in one day out of five flocks in a length 
of about seven miles of the Jumna, just below its junction with 
the Chambal, thirty-two, besides Geese and Ducks. It may 
seem mere butchery, but the Mahomedans eat all whose throats 
are cut, and all Hindoos, but Brahmins and Bhugeuts, the rest, 
and when you have a large camp, and want to keep people 
healthy and happy, it is well never to pass Deer, Crane or Geese. 
Very different opinions are often expressed as to the edibi- 
lity of Cranes—some laud them to the skies, some abuse them 
as fishy, stringy brutes, unfit to eat, and marvel greatly when 
they read in old books that in England our ancestors reckoned 
them great dainties. The fact is, that both their laudators and 
depreciators generalize too hastily. A Crane recently arrived 
before there is grain, or young juicy shoots to crop, and that 
is, perforce, feeding chiefly on insects, worms, small frogs, and 
even fishes, zs no doubt very indifferent eating, but the same 
bird four months later, when for six weeks it has been gorging 
itself daily with gram, wheat, rice, pulses, and peas of various 
D 
