409 
Egg-collecting in Asia Minor. 
when I had seen the Cranes, and although they were then 
all collected together in a flock, they looked to me as if they 
were commencing to pair, as they appeared to be restless and 
excited, and the males were continually giving vent to their 
loud trumpeting cry. Moreover, the Turkish hunter who 
was with me had assured me that the Cranes remained in the 
marshes near the salt-lake all the year round, and said he 
had seen young ones, though he had never come across a 
nest. 
On May 10th, 1899, the morning after my arrival at Appa, 
I was up at 5 a.m., and after a light breakfast went down to 
the railway-line in a trolly which the superintendent of the 
Aidin Railway—a hospitable German, then resident at 
Appa—had kindly placed at my disposal. We proceeded to 
a point close to the edge of a large extent of marsh where we 
had seen some Cranes stalking about on our way up the line 
from Aidin on the previous day, and it was here that the 
men I had with me said that these birds were in the habit of 
nesting. I was accompanied by two men and three youths, 
and we quartered the ground systematically for four hours, 
wading backward and forward in line. The vegetation 
growing in this salt-marsh was not reeds, but a coarse kind 
of grass, from a foot to two feet in height. The water was 
usually not more than ankle-deep, and never came up to my 
knees. The mud underneath, when disturbed, emitted a very 
strong and disagreeable stench, and the heat of the sun was 
very great. The thermometer in our railway-carriage had 
registered 96° in the shade with all the windows open on the 
previous day. The heat, the flooded plain, and the foul¬ 
smelling mud, all combined to call to my mind the remem¬ 
brance of many a hunt I had had after Leechwe antelopes, in 
the swamps of South Central Africa in days long gone by. 
We found several Cranes’ nests ; three with two eggs each, 
two with one egg only, and two more with nothing in them, 
or rather on them, for they were nearly flat. I don’t think the 
young birds had been hatched out of these nests, as they were 
quite clean, and there were no signs of egg-shells about; but 
one of the youths with me found a young Crane only just 
