THE SARUS.
The Sarus is very rare in Sind, even east of the Indus; and,
so far as I know, does not occur west of this river at all.
Burnes remarked that he had occasionally seen it on the Indus,
but never in Afghanistan.
In the Punjab it is found in the Dehli, Gurgaon, Kurnal,
Umballa, Gurdaspur and Lahore Districts, in fact as far west
as the Ravee, but not, so far as I know, in the Rohtak, Hissar,
Sirsa or Ferozpur districts, nor south of Ferozpur, anywhere
between the Satlej and the Indus, nor west of the Indus. Its
distribution southwards is not at present well defined. It does
not seem to occur at all in Mysore* nor in any of the Madras
districts south of this, nor has it ever been recorded from
Ceylon. Probably a line drawn from Daniaun on the west,
to Masulipatam on the east coast, would approximately indicate
the southern limits of its range in the Indian Peninsula.
It does not normally ascend the mountains, but in places, as
in the valley of Nepal, has been introduced. In Kulu also
Mr. Graham Young says it used to breed, but is now, he believes,
extinct. Into Kulu likewise it must have been introduced.
Dr. Anderson obtainedf this species in Upper or Independent
Burma ; but, with this exception, it is not as yet knozi 11 to occur
outside the limits of our Indian Empire, though it may prove
to extend to Siam (as Blyth asserts,}; but without quoting
any authority,) and South-western China.
T H E SARUS is essentially a bird of widely-extended and wellwatered
plains. Hilly and broken country on the one hand,
and sandy, waterless tracts (like many portions of Northwestern
Rajputana) on the other, it equally eschews. It
much prefers the neighbourhood of cultivation ; but it may be
found far away from this in places where wide level plains are
watered by streams or rivers, or dotted about with ponds or
lakes.
Water in some abundance it must have ; and, though not in
any degree normally migratory in India, it will, in years of great
drought, desert whole districts where it is ordinarily plentiful.
* Major Charles Mc. Inroy says (writing from Mysore) :—
" As far as my knowledge goes—and I know Mysore pretty well—the Sarus never
comes down here, nor did I ever see or hear of it south of the Godavari. North
of the Nirmul jungle, and thence towards Kamptee, is the furthest southerly point
at which it occurs to my knowledge."
t Dr. Anderson obtained specimens at Tsit Kaw. He is also of opinion that
he saw huge flocks of this Crane (Zool. Yunan Exp. 684) flying overhead when
he was encamped at Ponsee. This is remarkable, as this species is not known to be
migratory, nor even, when in large parties, to fly in V-shaped flocks, as he describes
those seen by him to have done.
J Blyth also mentions that Cantor procured it in Wellesley Province. If so, it
must have been a domesticated specimen. We have explored, not only Wellesley
Province, but the native states all round, without ever even hearing of the bird,
of which the Malays, who are keenly observant of birds, would have been sun to
speak and tell stories, did it really ever occur there.
THE SARUS. 3
Its habits vary somewhat, both according to season and to
locality. In most places it feeds during the day, in fields or
open plains, and in the forenoon, at some hour, and again in the
evening, comes down to water, where it mostly spends the
night. Some, however, live entirely in swamps and about large
lakes, and rarely leave the immediate neighbourhood of these at
any time.
During the dry weather they are concentrated in the few
localities where water is available, but during the rains they are
more equally distributed over the country. But whether in
large or small numbers, they are always in pairs, each pair
acting independently of the other pairs, though necessarily
their habits and the hours they keep at the same locality in the
same season, being identical, they often move together, and thus
to a certain extent seem to keep, at times, in flocks. During
the autumn and cold season most of the pairs are accompanied
by one, two, or rarely three, young ones, over whom they watch
with great solicitude.
They certainly pair for life, and palpably exhibit great grief
for the loss of their mate, keeping for weeks, at times, about
the locality where their partner was killed, and calling constantly.
Generally, after a week or ten days, the survivor disappears,
and, it is to be hoped, finds consolation elsewhere with
a new mate ; but on two occasions I have actually known the
widowed bird to pine away and die; in the one case my
dogs caught the bird in a field, where it had retreated to die,
literally starved to death; in the other, the bird disappeared,
and a few days later we found the feathers in a field, where it
had obviously fallen a prey to jackals. In both these cases
I had killed the birds by accident, shooting at other things
with a rifle; but I confess, with sorrow, that in my younger,
thoughtless days, I have often purposely killed them, simply for
practice. If absolutely required for food, (and the liver is very
good eating, and many of the lower castes of natives will eat
the bodies) or as specimens, of course they may be shot (though
even then I share the native prejudice that it is best to kill the
pair), but otherwise it is, I think, a sin to kill them.
I say this, because, including them amongst the " Game
Birds," it might be thought that we look upon them as fit objects
of sport. But the fact is that two of our Cranes are really
this, and we have only included the Sarus and the Snow-Wreath
Crane, in order that our account of the several Indian species
of the genus might not be incomplete.
Where not shot at, they are extremely tame, and unsuspicious
of men, especially of natives, often allowing these to
pass within twenty yards without taking wing, and in parts of
India, as in Rajputana and the Central India Agency, where
the natives, although not attaching to them the religious
reverence which they do to Pea-Fowl and Blue-Rock Pigeons,