4 
morning in a carriage to a village in which I hoped to find my guide. The drive was rather a long one, as it took me 
more than two hours and a half to reach the place of destination. On the road several villages were passed and the 
surrounding country, which was almost flat, consisted of one large field of rye. Once arrived I expected some difficulty in 
finding my guide, but at the first inquiry I got a satisfactory answer, and was told to call at the last house of the place 
which was the poorhouse. This last house of the village was not difficult to find and alighting from my carriage I soon found 
a door, which, however, was locked, and some windows, that were shut also, and as there was no bell I was just 
thinking where my knocking would be most effective, when suddenly, from some hitherto unseen aperture in the wall, a 
neat little lady emerged, curtseying and enquiring, whether I was the gentleman from Holland. Having satisfied her on 
this point she showed me in, and putting her head through a door, which stood ajar, into some other room apprised 
her lord and master that the visitor had come. After a while the man appeared, something between a rogue and a 
vagabond (very much of both) with whitish beard and hair and attired in, as he afterwards did me the honour to tell me, 
a homespun blue linen pair of trousers and a jacket of the same material, and a pair of wonderful wooden slippers. After 
I had made sure, as far as possible, that he really knew the abode of a breeding pair of Cranes, I got his promise to 
bring me there if I did not mind a rather long walk on a bad road or no road at all. This being no difficulty, his lady 
provided him with two slices of bread and some cheese, and wished us good speed, and so we departed. For some dis¬ 
tance the road went uphill and was very dusty and the country looked very ,un-cranelike”, but after having reached the 
top we rapidly came down again on the other side and got to an extent of swampy meadows with pine forests in the 
background. To these forests we were bound, and as we came near them the ground got a little dryer, and a roedeer 
was seen feeding in the meadows that touched the forest, and quietly trotted away at our approach. On the way I noti¬ 
ced that the frogs, which abounded in countless numbers in the water all round, had wonderfully bright yellow heads, so 
much so that when in the water with the head just peeping out of it, after frog-fashion, they were difficult to distinguish 
from the yellow flowers of the aquatic plants. 
Our way now led through the pine forest, and having passed through it, we turned to the left, following in Indian 
file, my guide and myself, along a narrow footpath bordering it, whilst at our right a tract of swampy heath intersper¬ 
sed with clumps of pine trees extended as far as I could see. After having gone on for a considerable time, disturbing 
a roedeer now and then, my guide halted and took off his stockings, and turning up his blue trousers a little way, 
turned to the right straight through the bog, the wooden slippers and naked feet making a splash all the time. 
After we had traversed more swamp and more pine-forest my guide halted again, and this time turned up his 
trousers as far as he could, although it seemed to me they would have been all the better for a good wash, and put 
his slippers into his pocket. We now had before us a big extent of water, which, in some parts, reached over my knees 
as we went through it. In the deepest part of it was a clump of trees, twenty or thirty in number, standing on slightly 
elevated ground, so that the foot of each tree was more or less out of the water. Near one of them was a little islet 
of some five feet long and four feet wide, and on this islet was what the Cranes consider a nest; that is a little mat 
of dry grass of about an inch high, two feet long and a little less wide, and perfectly flat. In the nest, or better on it, 
were some fragments of shells and a complete half shell with the membranes still moist on the inside, showing that the 
inmate had not left it for many days. The nest being thus completely surrounded by tolerably deep water the chicks had 
to swim a considerable distance before reaching terra firma in the neighbourhood. I took the shell as a memorial and 
again we waded through the water to look after the birds. All the shallower places were covered with cotton grass, which 
grew so abundantly in some parts as almost completely to hide the water, and formed a very pretty sight. We now 
reached little bits of pine forest and more elevated tracts of heather alternating with smaller and larger swampy meadows, 
and after half-an-hour’s search I discovered the birds in a meadow at some distance, walking leisurely about in all their 
graceful beauty. They were very busy now and then with something on the ground amongst the grass, evidently the two 
chicks. The man now told me that one of the chicks must be a week old and the other three or four days, as he had 
found the bird on the nest a week ago with one chick just hatched and the other egg still unbroken. As the birds were 
rather far away, we tried to approach them unobserved by going round a little pine wood, but as we were making the 
circuit the birds had evidently seen us and vanished, and all search in the meadow, in which the water in most places 
stood ankle deep, was in vain. After a rather long investigation, the small patches of forest alternating with the mea¬ 
dows making it impossible to obtain a general survey of the country, we at last saw the birds walking away in the dis¬ 
tance — an amazing distance considering the age of the chicks. 
We again tried to go round the trees so as to come upon the birds suddenly, and this time we succeeded in arriving 
within 50 feet of them, as they were passing through a wood to go to another meadow. Directly the old birds saw us, 
they began to run to the meadow, the little brown chaps bravely following as fast as they could. The difference in age 
of the two chicks now became quite apparent, the older one running very swiftly, and keeping bolt upright, whilst its 
younger companion tried to maintain the same pace, but had often to balance itself with its little extended wings, which 
