but the tip of the under mandible is pale flelh-colour: the top
of the head covered with a red fkin thinly befet with hairs: cheeks
and throat whitilh: the hind head and neck are cinereous : the
upper part of the back, fcapulars, and wing coverts, pale rufous,
margined with brown j the lower and rump cinereous : the
breaft, belly, thighs, and fides, afh-colour, changing to white at
the vent: the greater wing covert fartheft from the body, black-
ilh browns thofe neareft the body grey, forming a band on
the wing: the greater quills dark brown, with white ihafts;
the fecondaries pale rufous: fome of thefe laft are long and
narrow, and reach beyond the greater quills : the tail of a deep
alh-colour: legs and bare part of the thighs black.
Scarce any difference between the male and female.
Pia' e and This is likewife a fpecies peculiar to America-, migrating at the
M anners . °
different fealons, as the former. Seen by Kalm fo early as the 7th
o f February, paffing over New Jer/ey and Penfylvania-, but he fays
they are feen in much fewer numbers than formerly. Come into
the parts about Hudfon’s Bay in May: lay two eggs, and have the
fame manners as the laft : will alfo eat corn, and at times do damage
by eating the maize*. The flefh is thought good by
many. Called at Severn River the Blue Crane, by the natives
Samak-uchecbauk.
This is probably Willughby's Indian Crane f which he fays is
lefs than the common one, but the bill larger in proportion : the
top of the head red, fet with long hairs : the body afh-colour;
and the tail fhort, being hid by the feathers. Ray fuppofes it
to be the Foquilcoyotl of Hernandez, which is a Mexican fpecies t .
* Arft. Zool. "J* Orn. p- 275.
X Syn. p. 95. z.— See alfo la Grue du Mexique, Brif, v. p. 380»
Argil),
Argill, or Hurgill, Ives's Voy. p. 183.
a very large fpecies; from tip to tip of the wings meafuring
fourteen feet ten inches ; and from the tip of the bill to the claws,
feven feet and a half: the bill fixteen inches round at the bafe,
of different colours, and nearly of a triangular fhape: the feathers
of the back and wings very ftrong, and of an iron-colour;
thofe of the breaft long : over the belly a great deal of down, of
a dirty white : the legs and half the thighs naked; the naked
parts full three feet in length.
This monfter, as Ives terms it, inhabits Bengal, and is alfo
found at Calcutta; at the laft place called Hurgill, or Argill. It
majeftically ftalks along before one, and appears at firft like a
naked Indian. The common opinion is, that the fouls of the
Bramins poffefs thefe birds. | On opening one of thefe, a Terapin,
or land Tortoife, ten inches long, was found in its craw, and a
large male black cat was found intire in its ftomach*.”
I have fcarce a doubt of the above being the fame as a fpecies
remarked by Mr. Smeathman in Africa, while refident there; an
adult one of which will often meafure full 7 feet, when Handing
erect. He defcribes the plumage much the fame as in Mr. Ives’s
bird; adding, that the gape is monftroufly wide: the head covered
with white down, thinly difperfed, appearing not unlike a greyheaded
man: on the middle of the neck before, a long, conic
».
GIGANTIC CR.
D e s c r i p t io n.
P lace and
M anners .
# In Sumatra is faid to be a great variety of the Stork kind ; fome of a prodigious
lize, and otherwife curious; as the Boorong Cambing and Booring-oolar.
— See Mar/d* Sumatr. p. 98.
membrane.