MK. T. SOUTHWELL ON THE BREEDING OF THE CRANE. 169 
and long continued to be the home of some of our most interesting 
aquatic birds, after they had disappeared from localities better known 
to the older naturalists. 
It is evident that in 1534 alarm was excited at the decrease of 
the wild-birds valued for food, especially of the Crane and the 
Bustard, for in that year an Act was passed “ against the destruccyon 
of Wylde Fowle” by which a penalty of 20d. and one year’s 
imprisonment might be indicted for the destruction, purloinment, 
withdrawal, or taking from any nest the eggs of the two birds 
named, with lesser penalties for those of certain other species of 
wild-fowl. This Act was carefully drawn, and Crows, Choughs, 
Havens, and Bustards were specially exempted from protection, 
together with “any other fowl or their eggs not comestible nor used 
to bo eaten.” 
The next reference to the breeding of the Crane in England, 
and until the Hickling record was brought to light, the only 
positive statement on the subject I have met with, is that of 
Dr. William Turner, in his Avium Higtoria (Colonise, 1544), who 
although a native of Northumberland spent fifteen years at 
Cambridge, and was doubtless well acquainted with the birds of 
the Fen district. His statement is very precise that they bred 
in the marshy districts, and that he had very frequently seen 
their “ pipiones ; ” this experience was most likely gained in the 
Cambridgeshire fens.* 
It is quite evident that towards the end of the sixteenth century 
the Crane was growing scarce, and I know of no further reference 
to its breeding in East Anglia. Dr. Muffet, in his ‘ Health’s 
Improvement,’ before referred to, probably writing in 1595, does 
not speak of their breeding from his own experience. His words 
* Turner’s book is very rare, but Prof. Newton, who is the fortunate 
possessor of a copy, has kindly furnished me with a verbatim extract, which 
is as follows : (the book is not paged, but it occurs on what would be pp. 77 
and 78) “Vipiones Plin. dicuntur miuores grues & iuniores, [In margin 
“ Pipers ”] ut pipiones iuniores dicuntur columbse. Apud Anglos etiam 
nidulantur grues in locis palustribus, & earum pipiones saepissime uidi, quod 
quidam extra Angliam nati, falsum esse contendunt,” which may be thus 
rendered : “ Smaller and younger Cranes are called Vipiones by Pliny, as 
younger Doves are called Pipiones. Among the English also, Cranes nest in 
marshy places, and I have very often seen their Pipers, which thing certain 
men born out of England maintain to be false.” 
