Willughby, whose Ornithology was published about a hundred years later, says that Cranes were regular visitors in England, and that large flocks of them were to be found, in summer, in the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Whether they bred in England, as Aldrovandus states, on the authority of an Englishman who had seen their young, he could not say on his own personal knowledge.
Sir Thomas Browne, a contemporary of Willughby, writes, in his account of birds found in Norfolk: 'Cranes are often seen here in hard winters, especially about the champaign and fieldy part. It seems they have been more plentiful; for, in a bill of fare, when the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met with Cranes in a dish.'
Pennant, writing towards the close of the eighteenth century, says: 'On the strictest inquiry, we learn that, at present, the inhabitants of those counties are scarcely acquainted with them; we therefore conclude that these birds have left our land.' Three or four instances only of the occurrence of the Crane took place within the memory of Pennant's last editor; and about as many more are recorded by Yarrell as having come within the notice of his correspondents during the present century. It would seem, therefore, that the Crane has ceased to be a regular visitor to Britain. It is, however, still of common occurrence in many parts of the Eastern Continent, passing its summer in temperate climates, and retiring southwards at the approach of winter. Its periodical migrations are remarkable for their punctuality, it having been observed that, during a long series of years, it has invariably traversed France southward in the latter half of the month of October, returning during the latter half of the month of March. On these occasions, Cranes fly in large flocks, composed of two lines meeting at an angle, moving with no great rapidity, and alighting mostly during the day to rest and feed. At other seasons, it ceases to be gregarious, and repairs to swamps and boggy morasses, where in spring it builds a rude nest of reeds and rushes on a bank or stump of a tree, and lays two eggs. As a feeder it may be called omnivorous, so extensive is its dietary. Its note is loud and sonorous, but harsh, and is uttered when the birds are performing their flights as well as at other times.
The Crane of the Holy Scriptures is most probably not this species, which is rare in Palestine, but another, Grus Virgo, the Crane figured on the Egyptian monuments, which periodically visits the Lake of Tiberias, and whose note is a chatter, and not the trumpet sound of the Cinereous Crane. In the north of Ireland, in Wales and perhaps elsewhere, the Heron is commonly called a Crane.
A certain number of Cranes have been noticed in the Shetland Isles, and some in the Orkneys. The latest seen in Ireland was in 1884, County Mayo.
FAMILY OTIDIDÆ
No hind toe.
THE GREAT BUSTARD
OTIS TARDA