195 
Breeding of the Crane in Lapland. 
heard a slight chuckle that must have been from them. At 
length, as I had my glass in the direction of the nest, which was 
three or four hundred yards off, I saw a tall grey figure emer¬ 
ging from amongst the birch trees, just beyond where I knew 
the nest must be; and there stood the Crane in all the beauty 
of nature, in the full side light of an Arctic summer night. She 
came on with her graceful walk, her head up, and she raised it 
a little higher and turned her beak sideways and upwards as 
she passed round the tree on whose trunk I had hung the little 
roll of bark. I had not anticipated that she would observe so 
ordinary an object. She probably saw that her eggs were safe, 
and then she took a beat of twenty or thirty yards in the swamp, 
pecking and apparently feeding. At the end of this beat she 
stood still for a quarter of an hour, sometimes pecking and 
sometimes motionless, but showing no symptoms of suspicion 
of my whereabouts, and indeed no manifest sign of fear. At 
length she turned back and passed her nest a few paces in the 
opposite direction, but soon came in to it; she arranged with 
her beak the materials of the nest, or the eggs, or both; she 
dropped her breast gently forwards, and, as soon as it touched, 
she let the rest of her body sink gradually down. And so she 
sits with her neck up and her body full in my sight, sometimes 
preening her feathers, especially of the neck, sometimes lazily 
pecking about, and for a long time she sits with her neck curved 
like a swan’s, though principally at its upper part. Now she 
turns her head backwards, puts her beak under the wing, ap¬ 
parently just in the middle of the ridge of the back, and so she 
seems fairly to go to sleep. While she sits, as generally while 
she walks, her plumes are compressed and inconspicuous. 
By this time all birds, excepting perhaps a Fieldfare, are 
silent. I was now sure the Crane would not carry off her eggs. 
After enjoying for a short time longer this sight—and no epithet 
is yet in use which expresses the nature of the feelings created by 
such scenes in the minds of those who fully enjoy them—I found 
that the air was freezing. I quietly got up, and on reaching the 
fire made myself comfortable. Some four hours later, that is, be¬ 
tween four and five in the morning, we came again to the west 
side of the hill; there lay the Crane, head and neck still invisible ; 
