CRUS LEUCOCERANUS
Grus leucogeranus, Pallas.
Vernacular Names.— [Kare-Khur, Care-Kur, (Hindee) N. W. Provinces;
Tunhi, Oudh ; Chini Kulung, Hansi ; Syakbal, Cabul.\
WINTER migrant only, to India, the range within
our limits of this magnificent species is as yet quite
undefined.
I know of its occurrence now as a pretty regular
visitant to several districts in Oudh, and to many districts
of the N.-W. Provinces, north and east of the
Jumna, and Mr. Forsyth observed a flock at Dehreeon
Soane. It has occurred once, at any rate, at the Najafgurh
Jhil, or lake, south of Delhi, and Jerdon wrote to me that he had
met with it in 1864 near Kurnal, and ascertained its occurrence
near Hansi. I observed it in two places in Northern Sindh,
west of the Indus, and Mr. Doig has seen it on the Eastern
Narra, east of that river.
But it occasionally, at any rate, wanders much further south, as
Colonel McMaster records having killed one at Koohee, twenty
miles south-east of Kampti (near Nagpur) on the 3rd of February.
This is in about 2 1 ° north latitude, about the same
parallel as Surat.
On passage both Mr. Wilson and myself have met with it at
lakes far in the interior of the Himalayas.
Beyond this I possess no certain information ; and, though
Jerdon remarks that it has been said to occur in the Punjab and
Rajasthan, I have heard of it nowhere in the former, except in
the extreme eastern portions, in the places above mentioned,
and nowhere at all in the latter.
Outside our limits it occurs in Afghanistan, Eastern Turkestan,
in various parts of Siberia, Mongolia, Manchuria, and
Japan, and very rarely in Northern China.
Prjevalsky saw a flock in October at the Kokonor, obviously
on passage, and in Eastern Turkestan also it is probably only
a passing migrant, as indeed appears to be the case in Eastern
Russia, where it is regularly seen on the spring migration.