hundred are not uncommon, and ten or a dozen may be secured
at one time by shots fired out of a boat which has been allowed
to drift softly down alongside the sand bank they are occupying.
On returning from feeding in the fields they fly round and
round high in the air, apparently examining carefully the place
at which they intend to alight, all the while trumpeting loudly.
Sometimes they will descend rapidly, all turning and twisting,
almost like wild Geese, but generally they come down with long
sweeps gracefully and gently, their long legs hanging down
ready to touch the ground some time before they actually reach it.
Their note is a fine, clear, trumpet-like call, not so loud as
that of the Sarus, but clearer and more musical / think. It can
be heard distinctly when the bird is a mere speck in the sky.
Especially after having been surprised and shot at, and several
killed, flocks will rise in a body to an extraordinary height, and
there keep trumpeting, circling round and round, almost out of
sight, but well within hearing, for a considerable time. This is
particularly the case when there are several wounded birds on
the ground which are being chased.
A winged bird runs very well, and I have often seen a couple
of boatmen pretty well out of breath before they could come
up with one, and then when they did, fairly non-plussed by the
vigorous darts that the fugitive, once at bay, made at them with
his strong beak. A pretty severe wound may be received by
incautiously closing with a wounded bird, but a slight blow on
the side of the neck, with ever so thin a walking stick or cane,
finishes the struggle at once. When thus pursued they will
occasionally take to the water and swim, not gracefully,
indeed, much like a Flamingo, jerking their long necks with
each stroke, but with greater ease and rapidity than could
have been expected. Even when overtaken thus swimming they
will make a desperate resistance.
The force with which a dead Crane falls at times is surprising.
I had crossed the Jumna, late one evening, after some Geese
which we saw sitting on the opposite bank, but they were too
wise to await my arrival ; then I saw another flock browsing on
the young wheat some little distance from the shore, and as it
was getting dusk and you can at that time get nearer Geese on
land than at any other, I trudged wearily after them, but before I
could reach the place it had become pitch dark, and we heard
them go off cackling without being able to get a shot. As we
walked back to the boat, we became aware that an enormous
flock of Cranes, that had been trumpeting all the while, were
directly over our head. I wanted to unload my big gun, and so
fired at random straight up. I had hardly recovered from the recoil
cf the old cannon, as my friends christened it, when a peculiar
rushing sound caught my ear (luckily the sound out-sped the
bird). I just started back to listen, when with a " scrush" a dead
Crane plopped on to the ground at my feet precisely where I
had stood. It was a minute or two before we quite realized
what had happened ; the ground was the stiff, clayey, river soil,
damp, so far that one sank about three to four inches into it in
walking ; the Crane had fallen back downwards, the shoulders
first striking the ground, and was firmly bedded in the clay.
We pulled it out and found the basin-like depression, as far as
I could judge in the dark, feeling the place carefully, fully
eight inches deep in the deepest part. I had only a thin grey
tweed smoking cap on, and had I not started back that step, I
fancy that our Cranes would have had to find another historian.
When feeding they are wary birds, almost always posting
sentinels and rarely to be approached within gun shot, without
a careful stalk ; but like all long-necked birds a single shot in
the neck drops them, and in parts of the country, as in many
places in the Punjab and Rajputana, where they have not
recently been shot at, you may, with a native blanket over your
head, approach within sixty or seventy yards, by walking as if
you meant to pass them, when a heavy duck gun, with wire
cartridge and very large shot, will generally drop three or four
out of the flock as they rise. I have killed as many as seven
with one shot thus. As a rule, however, on the land, a smallbore
rifle is to be preferred, and they often stand so thick that
a single bullet secures two or even three.
But when you approach them by water, drifting down on them
in a small native boat, such as they continually see passing, you
and every one in the boat lying quiet, and only one man wading
behind the boat, guiding it and hidden by it, you may get
as close as you like to the outermost files, fire your big gun
into the densest patch distant from fifty to seventy yards,
and knock over three or four more of the closer ones with your
ordinary doubles.
I have thus killed in one day out of five flocks in a length
of about seven miles of the Jumna, just below its junction with
the Chambal, thirty-two, besides Geese and Ducks. It may
seem mere butchery, but the Mahomedans eat all whose throats
are cut, and all Hindoos, but Brahmins and Bhugguts, the rest,
and when you have a large camp, and want to keep people
healthy and happy, it is well never to pass Deer, Crane or Geese.
Very different opinions are often expressed as to the edibility
of Cranes—some laud them to the skies, some abuse them
as fishy, stringy brutes, unfit to eat, and marvel greatly when
they read in old books that in England our ancestors reckoned
them great dainties. The fact is, that both their laudators and
depreciators generalize too hastily. A Crane recently arrived
before there is grain, or young juicy shoots to crop, and that
is, perforce, feeding chiefly on insects, worms, small frogs, and
even fishes, is no doubt very indifferent eating, but the same
bird four months later, when for six weeks it has been gorging
itself daily with gram, wheat, rice, pulses, and peas of various
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