36 WADING BIRDS. 



of insects, grain, and reptiles ; they swallow also mice, 

 moles, rats, and frogs with great avidity, and may therefore 

 be looked upon, at least, as very useful scavengers. They 

 are also, at times, killed as game, their flesh being well 

 flavored, as they do riot subsist so much upon fish as 

 many other birds of this family. It is with difliculty, 

 however, that they can be approached, or shot, as they 

 are so remarkably shy and vigilant. They build their nests 

 on the ground, after the manner of the common Crane 

 of Europe, selecting a tussock of long grass, in some 

 secluded and solitary swamp, raising its sides to suit their 

 convenience, so as to sit upon it with extended legs. The 

 eggs are two in number, as large as those of the swan, and 

 of a bluish wdiite color, blotched with brown. 



The Whooping Crane rises with difficulty from the ground, 

 flying low for a time, and thus affording an easy mark for 

 the sportsman. At other times they fly around in wide cir- 

 cles, as if reconnoitering the surrounding country for fresh 

 feeding ground ; occasionally they rise spirally into the air 

 to a great height, mingling their screaming voices together, 

 which are still so loud, when they are almost out of sight, 

 as to resemble a pack of hounds in full cry. Early in Feb- 

 ruary, Wilson met wdth several of these Cranes in South 

 Carolina ; at the same season, and in the early part of the 

 following month, I heard their clamorous cries nearly every 

 morning around the enswamped ponds of West Florida, and 

 throughout Georgia, so that many individuals probably pass 

 either the \vinter or the whole year in the southern extrem- 

 ity of the Union. 



It is impossible to describe the clamor of one of these 

 roosting flocks, which they begin usually to utter about 

 sunrise. Like the Howling Monkeys or Preachers of 

 South America, (as they are called,) a single individual 

 seemed at first as if haranguing, or calling out to the assem- 



