168 MR. T. SOUTHWELL ON THE BREEDING OF THE CRANE. 
the day I had a longing wish to have another look at my young 
friends. I thought the old naturalists would have called them 
‘ Peepers.’ . . . To see them twice in a life would be a consolation, 
but it was not to be,” both young and old had gone. He had other 
opportunities however of studying the nesting habits of the Crane. 
It is however to the nesting of this bird in Great Britain I wish 
particularly to refer, and of that there is little enough positive 
evidence, although there is more which is indirect. The earliest 
record with which I am acquainted happens to be the most circum- 
stantial, and fortunately refers to our own County of Norfolk. In 
the City Chamberlain’s accounts, before referred to, under the date 
of 1542 — 3, and the sub-heading of “The morrow after Corpus 
Xti’ day,” which I am informed fell in that year on the day 
corresponding with the 4th of June of our present reckoning, occurs 
the following entry : — 
Itm. pd to Notyngham of Ilyklyng for a yong 
Pyper Crane 
. v s. 
and for caryage to Norwich 
. 
iiij d. 
to Edmond Wolcey for an other Crane 
v s. 
= X s. 
iiij d. 
The above formed part of a present to the Duke of Norfolk, 
then at Kenninghall, and from the time of year, and the express 
mention of a “ yong Pyper Crane,” there is no room for doubt 
that in the year 1543 the Crane bred at Ilickling. There are 
other entries which seem to point in the same direction, especially 
that quoted at p. 163 when 12d was paid for a man & horse “to seke 
Cranes,” for although I find it impossible to fix the precise date 
of this entry, it appears, I think, highly probable that they were 
young Cranes of which he went in search.* The instances, too, 
where Cranes are mentioned associated with fat Swans, which 
we know were only eaten in the cygnet stage, seems to me strong 
presumptive evidence that they also were bred in the neighbourhood. 
The instance just quoted is, so far as I know, the most precise 
record extant of the Crane breeding in Britain, and I am exceedingly 
glad that it should refer to our own County, and to a locality which 
up to a very recent period has retained much of its original wildness, 
* Mr. Gurney suggests that the horse may have been used as a stalking 
horse, behind which to approach the Cranes. 
