m
Grus communis, Beckstein,
Vernacular Names.—[Koorooncb, Koorch, (Hindee), N. W. Provinces; Kul.
hing. (Oordno) Upper India; Knllam, Deccan; Kulungi, (Telegu); Wainu,
Alu Iiipur.]
WINTER migrant to our Empire, the range of the
Common Crane has yet to be accurately defined. It
has been recorded from most of the districts of the
Deccan, becoming rarer towards the south. How
much further south it wanders I have been unable
to ascertain. Mr. Albert Theobald seems never to
have met with it anywhere in the Madras Districts
south of Mysore, but Major Campbell, of the 26th M. N. I.,
writes from Quilon, that it is not uncommon in Travancorc.
It has never as yet, I believe, been recorded from Ceylon.
Northwards it extends through the northern portions, at any
rate of the Nizam's Dominions, Khandesh, Berar, the Central
Provinces, Guzcrat, the Central India Agency, Cutch, Kathiawar,
Sind, Rajputana, the North-West Provinces and Oudh and the
Punjab, being far more common towards the north than towards
the south of this vast tract. On the east I have no record
of its occurrence south of the Mahanadi. North of this it is
found in the Tributary Mahals, Chota Nagpur, and the whole of
Western Bengal and Behar. I do not know whether it occurs
in the deltaic districts of Bengal, but it is common in the
Sikhim Terai and the Diiars, and probably extends up to the
easternmost extremity of the valley of Assam, as Col. Graham
writes that it is very common in the Darrang and Lakhimpur
Districts. South and east of the Brahmaputra again I
have no record of its occurrence ;* but Mason, whether on any
sufficient grounds or not I cannot say, includes it without remark
in his list of the Birds of Burma.f
Outside our limits it may be broadly said to occur throughout
Europe right up to the North Cape, and Northern Africa as
* Mr. Inglis of Dilkoosha, Cachar, tells me that in all the years he has been
there, sportsman and somewhat of an ornithologist to boot as he is, he has never
seen or heard of a Crane in that district.
t Mr. Oates has never met with it in Pegu.