Mr. Theobald writes (from Collegal) :—
"They chiefly affect cultivated rice fields, and feed on paddy.
The Brahmins here and in Mysore consider them sacred,
and with their usual hazy conceptions of geography say that
they come from a high mountain near Kashi (Benares),
called in Sanskrit Himovutli Parvuttum, or snowy mountain.
Some royals leave small patches of paddy uncut for these birds
to feed on. A naturalist runs some risk in shooting one of
these birds near a Brahmin village here. In the north of
India it is, I hear, the Sarus which is considered a sacred bird,
but not this one. The Brahmins about here confound, I
suppose, the one with the other."
WE HAVE not many details of the nidification of this species
which, however, breeds probably in Spain, and certainly in the
Dobrudscha, the Steppes of Southern Russia, Southern Algeria,
the countries about the Caucasus, Southern and South-Eastern
Siberia, Dauria and Mongolia. One writer (Artzibascheff) says
that it " does not (near Sarepta) take the trouble to make a
a nest, but scratches a hole in the ground in which it deposits
about the middle of April one or two eggs."
Dybowski says that in Dauria " it nests on the rocky banks of
rivers and rarely on bare mountains. The nest is made of small
stones fitting close to each other ; the surface of the nest is flat
or deepening somewhat towards the centre ; it chooses sometimes
a place which is a few inches higher than the surrounding
ground, and fills up all the crevices and openings with stones.
We have seen eggs in June, and till the middle of July."
These seem no doubt rather abnormal nests for Water Birds
like Cranes, and Nordmann says they build nests like the
Common Crane, but it must not be forgotten that Cranes
arc closely allied to Bustards, and that these latter lay their eggs
on the bare ground, and that the eggs of both the Common
Crane and the present species present a certain superficial
resemblance to those of the Great Bustard.
Many writers notice the dances in which this species indulges
just prior to, or at the commencement of, the breeding season.
We see nothing of this, of course, in India, but they appear to be
similar to those already described of the Sarus, with this exception,
that the Sarus, keeping always in pairs and not in flocks,
you see amongst them only two performers on the stage at once,
while in the case of the Demoiselles you have a whole flock
amusing themselves simultaneously.
Von Nordmann says: " They dance and jump towards each
other, bowing themselves in a most burlesque manner, bending
their necks forward, extending the plumes on the neck
and depressing their wings; others again in the meanwhile
run races, and on arrival at the gaol, return striding along
gravely and quietly, whilst the rest of the assembly greet them
with reiterated cries, inclinations of the head, and other demon-
S t r i have never seen the eggs of this species, and authentic eggs
are uncommonly rare. Dresser says that they are, as a rule,
smaller, darker, and more clearly marked than those of the
Common Crane which I have already fully described, and that
they vary from 305 to 3-55 in length, and from 2'02 to 2'2 in
breadth.
1 DO not find that the sexes in this species differ in any way in
size. I have recorded the measurements of sixteen adults, and
find that some males are as large, and some as small, as any
female, and vice versA.
Length, 310 to 35'6; expanse, 660 to 73'0; wing, i8-o to
2 r o ; tail from vent, 6'0 to 7^5 ; tarsus, 6^25 to 7'8; bill from
gape, 2 7 to 3-05 ; weight, 5 lbs to 675 lbs.
The tcrtiaries project from 4/0 to 6 0 inches beyond the
primaries in birds killed in March ; perhaps during the breeding
season they are somewhat more elongated.
The irides in the adult are red, varying from crimson to vermilion
; in the young they are brown, and every intermediate
shade occurs in more or less immature birds. The bill varies
a good deal ; it is generally greenish, with a reddish tinge at tip ;
in some I have noted it sea green at base, yellowish towards the
middle, and pink at tip ; in another yellowish at tips, greenish
horny at base ; the legs and feet arc normally black, but I
shot one specimen, a large male, but probably a sickly bird, in
which they were only a dusky slate colour, and in this bird,
though it was certainly an adult, the irides were orange red.
THE PLATE very fairly represents our bird, and is most creditable
to a comparative novice like Miss Herbert.
The young bird differs from the old in having the sides of the
head, chin, and throat, grey instead of black as in the adult;
the ear tufts are very little developed, and are grey ; the pectoral
plumes are very little developed, and only the central ones
blackish brown ; the tertials are not developed at all.
CRANES, subdivided by ornithologists into several genera, are
distributed pretty well over the whole of the world, but appear
to avoid, to a great extent, the smaller islands. In Asia,
besides those already noticed, we have G. viridirostris, like the
Snow-Wreath, but with a green bill and black legs ; G. vipio, of
a slatey grey, with the nape and entire back of neck white, and
red legs ; and G. monachus of a dark brownish slatey colour, with
the head and upper part of the neck all round, white, and
brownish green legs, all of which seem to belong to Japan and