266 The Animal-Lore of Shahspeare s Time, 
In Sir Thomas Browne’s time, cranes seem to have 
grown scarce. He says : — 
“ Cranes are often seen here in hard winters, especially about the 
champian and fieldy parts, hut it seems they have been more plentiful, 
for in a bill of fare, when the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk 
I meet with cranes in a dish.” (Yol. iv. p. 314.) 
The crane was a customary dish at great entertainments 
in the reign of Henry VIII., though it is not improbable 
that cranes were often confounded in the records with 
herons. 
The crowned African crane was first brought into 
Europe by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. It 
is a native of Africa, particularly of the coast of Guinea, 
the Gold Coast, and as far as Cape Verd. 
Marco Polo, one of the earliest travellers, whose works 
w 7 ere much read in the Middle Ages, writing of Tartary 
at the close of the thirteenth century, describes some birds 
of gorgeous hues, that he calls cranes:— 
“ The first sort are entirely black as crows, and have long wings. 
The second sort have wings still longer than the first, hut are white and 
the feathers of the wings are full of eyes, round like those of the 
peacock, hut of a gold colour and very bright; the head is red and black 
and well-formed, the neck is black and white, and the general appear¬ 
ance of the bird is extremely handsome. The third sort are of the size 
of ours in Italy, the fourth are small cranes, having the feathers prettily 
streaked with red and azure. The fifth are of a grey colour, with the 
head red and black, and are of a large size.” ( Travels , p. 248, ed. 
Marsden.) 
The Portuguese Friar, whose travels in Africa in 158G 
are recorded in Purchas’s Collection , probably describes 
the crowned crane in the following passage:— 
“ They have onekinde of fowles, called cur vanes, as bigge as cranes, 
but more beautiful, the hack like black sat tin, exceeding white on the 
belly and breast: the neck two spannes and a halfe long, covered with 
fine white feathers like silke, which are excellent for plumes : upon the 
head it hath a cap of black feathers, very faire (as our gold finches 
have red), and in the midst thereof a crest or plume almost a span long. 
