192 
Mr. J. Wolley, jun., on the 
also a few bushes or treelets of the common birch, and these 
quite numerous in some parts of the marsh. 
Walking along one of these strips, in a direction where the 
pair of Cranes was said to be often heard, I came upon a nest 
which I was sure must be a Crane's. I saw one bit of down. The 
nest was made of very small twigs mixed with long sedgy grass ; 
altogether several inches in depth, and perhaps two feet across. 
In it were two lining-membranes of eggs, and on searching 
amongst the materials of the nest I found fragments of the 
shells. We had not gone many yards beyond this place, when 
I saw a Crane stalking in a direction across us amongst some 
small birch trees, now appearing to stoop a little, and now 
holding its head and neck boldly up as it steadily advanced. 
Presently the lads called out to me that they had found some 
young Cranes. As I ran towards them, a Crane, not the one I 
had previously seen, rose just before me from among some 
bushes which were only two or three feet high, and not twenty 
yards from the place where the lads had been shouting at least 
for a minute or two. It rose into the air in a hurried, frightened 
way. There was nothing just at the spot where it got up, 
neither eggs nor young. I then went up to where the two little 
Cranes were found. They were standing upright and walk¬ 
ing about with some facility, and making a rather loud “ cheep¬ 
ing " cry. They seemed as if they could have left such eggs as 
Cranes were supposed to lay only a very few days. I say supposed , 
for in England we know nothing of the eggs which are called 
Cranes', but which may have come from any part of the world. 
They were straightly made little things, short in the beak, livid 
in the eye, thick in the knees, covered with a moderately long 
chestnut or tawny-coloured down, darker on the upper parts, 
softening away into paler underneath. As I fondled one of 
them it began to peck playfully at my hands and legs, and 
when at length I rose to go away, it walked after me, taking 
me as I supposed for one of its long-legged parents. I had 
only just before been plucking from it some bits of down to 
keep ; for, valuable as I knew it to be in a natural-history point 
of view, I could not make up my mind to take its life. As soon 
as I saw its inclination to follow, I took to double-quick time. 
