often similarly seen, some few being occasionally met with there
at other times during the winter. One was shot on the 22nd
of May (!) on a small lake between Hanle and the Tso-mourari—
a solitary bird that must have dropped out of a flock.
So far as ascertained, therefore, the normal range of this species
within our limits would appear to be the plains portions of
the whole Bombay Presidency, excluding the sub-ghat littoral,
but including Cutch, Kathiawar and Sind, in the latter of which,
however, it is rare Trans-Indus, Berar, the Central India Agency*
the Central Provinces, the Nizam's Territories, Mysore and
the northern portions of the Coimbatore District, the North-
West Provinces, Behar, and the submontane districts of Bengal
and Assam, as far east as Darrang, Oudh, Rajputana and the
Punjab, where it seems rare in the more north-westerly portions,
and the Central and Eastern Himalayas generally, on passage.
Outside our limits, the Demoiselle occurs regularly in Southern
and South-Eastern Europe (stragglers having been shot
in the British Isles, Scandinavia, &c), and in suitable localities
in Africa, as far south as Natal. A migrant like the
Common Crane, it goes much farther south, and does not extend
nearly so far north in Europe.
It is found in Asia Minor, in all the countries about the
Caspian, in Eastern Turkestan, Afghanistan, Southern and
South-Eastern Siberia, Dauria, Mongolia and Western China,
and Prjevalsky saw a flock at the Kokonor on the 28th of
February.
A COLD weather visitant to India, the Demoiselle Crane arrives
in Guzerat, and I believe the northern portions of the Deccan
very early in October, and, so far as I can ascertain, a little later,
and not earlier, in Upper India. The earliest date that I have
found noted for it in the North-West Provinces is the first week
in October by A. Anderson ; but, as a rule, my own experience
leads me to think that from the 10TH to the 15TH is the usual
period, at which it arrives in the Dun and other districts of the
Doab.
Moreover, this species never occurs, I think, in Upper India,
in the same numbers that it does in the Deccan and Guzerat
and Kathiawar. You see enormous flocks no doubt—flocks, one
of which I once estimatedf to contain fully 2,000 individuals,—
* Not uncommon on tanks about Oojcin and Ooneil—Captain IV. J. ffeaviside,
RE.
t I counted carefully with a glass the birds occupying one section of a bank, and
estimated by subsequent measurement, careful landmarks having been taken, the
pi oportion that this section bore to the entire area occupied. The birds were in
one uniform dense belt along the water's edge. From a post to a small promontory
was 144 feet in length ; this section contained, by actual count, 480 to 500 {three
separate persons counted them, and hardly a bird moved the whole time.) They were
8, 9 and to deep. The birds looked to be touching, but this gives nearly six square
feet to each bird. The flock extended 120 feet left of the post, and 376 right
cf the promontory, and except at the extreme ends was perfectly uniform in
but you see very few of them, compared to what you see in the
Deccan, or to what you see of the Common Crane. Being
much rarer than this latter, I was always much more eager
in their pursuit, and when you do see them, they maybe equally
certainly killed either in high urhur, or from a boat, and yet I
have not killed, in either the North-West Provinces or the
Punjab, one Demoiselle for every ten of the Common Crane.
Again, they seem to remain much later in parts of the Deccan
than thay ever do in Upper India. Burgess says : " I saw a large
flock of this species on the Seena River near Waterphul, as late
as the 24th May, and was told that one had been brought into
the Cantonments of Ahmednugger as late as the 12th of June ;"
and I have two or three other records of their having been
obtained in other parts of the Deccan well into May. I have
never known one killed in any part of Upper India later than
the 20th April* ; the majority leave the Doab, by the end of
March, and the rivers of the North-West Punjab by the 10th
April, and in some years earlier.
It is a pure hypothesis I admit, but these facts have led me
to suspect that the birds of Western India come mostly to us
like the small Flamingo from Africa, while those of Upper
India cross the Himalayas to us from the uplands of Central A s i a.
The latter migration I have myself twice witnessed when in the
interior of the Himalayas; once near Petoragurh and once
near Chini in the Satlej valley, both times early in October,
(unfortunately I did not record dates), and Beavan noted that
he had seen large flights passing over head at Mount Tongloo
in 1862. There is no possibility of mistaking their harsh grating
cry, so that neither Beavan nor myself could have confounded
them with the Common Crane which, no doubt, migrates
along the same line and at nearly the same season.
In the far south I may notice they arrive much later ; thus
Mr. Theobald writes, " that about Collegal they appear towards
the latter part of December, viz., about harvest time, a n d leave
by the end of February or early in March."
As a general rule the Demoiselle greatly prefers the shelving
shores and sandbanks of the larger rivers to lakes and tanks,
but I have seen them on many occasions about these latter, and
Captain Butler, writing of Northern Guzerat, remarks :—
"The Demoiselle Crane occurs in immense flocks all over the
plains in the cold weather, arriving about the first week in
October. Dr. Jerdon remarks that ' it never betakes itself
to tanks or jhfls during the day.' This is an erroneous
impression, as I have seen tanks fringed with a blue -margin of
distribution This would give fully 2,000 to the whole flock. This was on IT huge
sandbank in the Jumna near Beejhulpore in the Etawah district. The entire flock
was standing in the water, the rearmost birds close to the edge, where it may have
been 3 inches, and the outermost birds about 20 feet from the margin, where it was
about 7 inches deep. There was a fair breeze blowing down stream, and all the
birds stood, head to wind, their bodies parallel to the shore.
* See, however, the Postscript, page 40.
E