197 
Breeding of the Crane in Lapland. 
of my fire blew towards the nest. I saw a Crane go sailing 
down, and afterwards the pair walking together, when they 
indulged in a minuet or some more active dance, skipping into 
the air as the Demoiselles sometimes do in the Zoological 
Gardens. Once or so I saw the beak of one pointed per¬ 
pendicularly to the sky, and a couple of seconds afterwards 
the loud trumpet struck my ear. It was two or three o’clock 
in the morning before a bird came on to the nest, and even 
then she was soon off, but again came back, sitting always with 
her head up. She left it very wild, when at last we advanced 
from our bivouac. In this watch I saw and heard many inter¬ 
esting birds, amongst them a Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus). 
Also a pair of Goshawks (Astur palumbarius) dashed into a tree 
close over my head, the Crane still visible in the distance. 
These eggs were rather smaller than the pair from Iso uoma; 
two other nests which I have since obtained in Lapland have 
eggs as big as those which are said to come from Germany, 
and vary as they do. I had the pleasure in August 1857 of 
showing Mr. Frederick Godman and his brother Percy a nest 
near Muonio-vaara, from which eggs were taken the same year, 
and a young one fledged, from the same marsh at least, if not 
from the same nest, as in 1856. Their wading to this nest, 
known to be empty, amidst swarms of greedy gnats, was a satis¬ 
factory proof of zeal. 
The locality was in a perfectly open part of the rather small 
marsh, which was scarcely half an English mile across; so that 
the bird on its nest must have been most conspicuous from 
every side. It was on a little elevation, not more than one stride 
across, and raised only a few inches above the water. The eggs 
on the 5th of June were a good deal sat upon. The finders did 
not venture to leave them, both for this reason, and because a 
large hawk was believed to be watching them. They assured me 
that the birds did not cry, which agrees with my experience of 
their behaviour when I was near the other two nests. 
I went the day after the eggs were taken to see the place. 
There was still ice enough down in the bog to prevent me sink¬ 
ing beyond a certain moderate depth : not so when the Godmans 
tried it. The nest, as usual, was of the kind of sedgy grass 
p 
VOL. i. 
