196 
Mr. J. Wolley, jun., on the 
we may have whispered too loud/for she soon raised her head. 
I now wished to see how she would leave the nest, whether 
crouchingly or not. I took a line not directly towards it, cur¬ 
ving more upon it as I advanced, of course taking care to keep 
my eyes in a different direction. When I believed that I was 
just opposite, I looked, as I thought, towards the place, which 
might be about twenty paces off, but I did not at first recognize 
the bird. She was a few feet from the exact spot I had expected, 
and I unconsciously took her for a grey stone, till my eye turned 
directly on her. I had then just time to mark her position with 
her head drawn in between her shoulders, when, having caught 
my glance, she rose steadily into the air. In one part of the 
nest was a damp spot from the water of the marsh having soaked 
through. The eggs now lay touching each other. WTien I 
came to blow them, I found to my surprise that they were one 
or two days sat upon. In 1855 this nest, as Ludwig informed 
me, was robbed by a Fielfras (Gulo borealis). I had the plea¬ 
sure of showing it, towards the end of the summer of the same 
year, to my friend Mr. Alfred Newton, who thought the diffi¬ 
culties of the bog fully repaid by the sight even of an empty 
Crane's nest. We found on this occasion, on examining the 
materials of the nest, old pieces of egg-shell, showing that it 
was the same nest that had been used in previous years. 
I must not go into long particulars concerning the nest of 
1854 in Khar to uoma. I found the two eggs on the 22nd of 
May, in a spot only two feet from the nest of the preceding 
year. It consisted of not more than a handful or so of whitish 
sedge grass, about twenty inches across and two or three inches 
only above the level of the water of the submerged parts of the 
marsh, close to the edge of which it was situated. There was a 
kind of creeping moss about it, and one or two very low-lying 
shoots of sallow. 
It was placed in an open part of the middle of the south-east 
wing of the marsh. I have a memorandum that there was not 
then a leaf unrolled, the only visible signs of summer -being a 
kind of Car ex coming into flower on the hummocks, and yet the 
nights were quite as light as the day. 1 kept watch at the 
distance of nearly half a mile; but unfortunately the smoke 
