these birds at least sixty yards wide, and extending over several
acres of ground, over and over again."*
I have seen comparatively so little of this species that I cannot
speak positively about it as I can of the Common Crane ;
but I should say that in Upper India its habits were much like
those of the latter. They feed in fields in the early mornings,
come down to the river or to large tanks about 9 o'clock, and
spend a good part of the day there, though generally paying
a second visit late in the afternoon to their feeding grounds,
and return to the water about sunset to pass the night upon
some bare, low, sandbank, whence their harsh cries ceaselessly
resound till they again leave about or just before dawn. I
have not observed them so perpetually on the wing, as Mr. Vidal,
whose remarks I quote below, tells us it is their habit to be in
the Deccan, nor have I found them one whit more wary or difficult
to shoot than the Common Crane. More noisy they certainly are,
and the uproar that arises when after a successful drift you have
fired into one of the enormous flocks, such as I have already
described, is alike indescribable, and to any one who has had no
personal experience of it, incredible. Thousands of mighty
pinions, almost convulsively beating the air at the same moment,
and. thousands of powerful windpipes all simultaneously grating
out the harsh kurr-kurr-kurr, &c, some shriller, some baser, each
single voice amongst the multitude capable of making itself
heard for two miles. Scream as you will, it will be a couple of
minutes before you can make a man close beside you hear a
syllable you say.
They run well, but not nearly so swiftly as the Common Crane ;
and though when dropping in the water they will try to swim,
the few I have seen attempt it made but little way, and were
captured at once.
On the ground they will fight fiercely, but they have nothing
like the power of the Common Crane, and the boatmen would
close with them and seize their bills in a way they never could
with the other bird, and return in triumph to the boat, holding
them by these, but carefully at arms' length, as they can give a
very nasty cut with their claws.
I have never happened to have the chance of hawking this
species, but I know that it is often successfully done, though
even the Demoiselle is frequently too much for the best Falcons.
Jerdon says that this species never makes use of its beak in
self-defence, but is very apt to injure the Falcon with its
sharp inner claw, and that a well-trained Peregrine, therefore,
always strikes this Crane on the back and not on the
head. He adds, that the mate of a stricken quarry often turns
and comes to its companion's rescue. I can well believe this,
for when winged birds are being pursued on the sands, others
* This passage is wrongly quoted by Dresser in the " Birds of Europe" as mine. It
is Captain E. A. Butler's.
continually come down recklessly within easy shot, and once
when having fired at a flock high over head, on the plain near
the Bhurtenan Railway Station, one bird dropped suddenly
after the flock had gone on two or three hundred yards, a
second one dashed down along with it, and seemed, as we ran
up, to be endeavouring to rouse its lifeless mate. Despite the
natural shyness of these birds, this faithful comrade did not
take wing till we were within twenty yards, and even then,
though the rest of the flock were out of sight, hung high in air,
circling and calling above us for a long time. It struck me at
the moment that had these been Common Cranes the flock
would not have gone on, but would have remained circling
over head, at any rate until the second bird had been shot or
had rejoined the party ; and I was led to suspect, though it is idle
generalizing from a solitary case, that in this species possibly
the domestic ties are stronger and the tribal ones weaker than in
the Common Crane. Certainly I can say this, that in Upper
India this latter species keeps for the whole cold season in
much the same flocks ; while of the Demoiselle, the flocks are
constantly splitting up and re-uniting, so that where you see 2,000
one day, there are only perhaps fifty the next, and five hundred
the third, and so on ; whereas for months together you recognize,
or fancy you do, the parties of the Common Cranes by their size.
Moreover, these latter more habitually and persistently (even
though repeatedly shot at) frequent the same neighbourhood,
whereas the Demoiselle is as inconstant as her name implies,
and rarely remains attached to the same locality for many
weeks running.
Though I have found animal food similar* to that devoured
by the Common Crane in the gizzards of the present species,
it has always been in small quantities, and the great bulk of
the food in all the specimens I have examined has always
proved to be grain and green vegetable matter, and I may add
that most of those I have eaten, killed on rivers, proved just
as good eating as the Common Crane. They leave us in the
Doab, as a rule, before the 1st of April, and I have no record
of any specimen having been killed later than the 20th of
April, and that was near Jhilum.
Their habits and food vary a good deal in different parts of
the country. Mr. G. Vidal writes :—
" The Demoiselle Crane is abundant in Sattara in the valleys
of the Krishna, Nira and Yerla Rivers, and further east. They
avoid the vicinity of the Sahyadri Ghats, and are never found
in the Southern Konkan. They arrive in large flocks usually
in December, and for the first few weeks of their arrival spend
nearly all their time on the wing, seldom, except perhaps at
night, alighting on the fields. They descend usually to the
Except fishes ; I have never found these in the stomachs of this present
species.