102 NOTES ON THE 



lated, thinly beset with short scattered black hairs; feathers of 

 occiput advancing forward in an obtuse angle, the gray feath- 

 ers along this point and over the auricular region, tinged with 

 plumbeous. 



Length, 48; wing, 22; tarsus, 10; commissure, 6. 



Habitat, interior of North America 



I found immense flocks of Sandhill Cranes in the Sacramento 

 valley, not far from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada moun- 

 tains, in 1870, about the middle of Februarj'. But not any 

 larger are found there than in the flat prairies along the Red 

 river in northern Minnesota, two months later in the spring. 

 There are times at that season of the year when their hoarse 

 cronkings may be heard almost continuously in some localities. 



At the time of mating, the males have a habit of rising to 

 immense elevations, and beating large circles while they main- 

 tain their notes for hours at a time. These can be distinctly 

 heard after the bird has risen to such a height as to be beyond 

 the range of the best human vision. 



Family RALLID.E. 

 KVLAl'S ELEGANS Audubon. (208.) 



KING RAIL. 



For many years after I became a resident of the State, my 

 duties called me daily considerable distance into the country in 

 various directions, and not infrequently in the night. In my 

 solitary rides I became familiar with almost every sound habitu- 

 ally heard in the darkness, one of which came uniformly from 

 certain marshy water courses, and the borders of reedy ponds 

 near which I passed. At such times my ears were the princi- 

 pal organs of sense, and I noticed amongst the many sounds, 

 one that seemed to formulate the syllable greek, repeated four 

 to five times in succession, with the heaviest emphasis on the 

 first utterance, which diminished with each repetition, the last 

 being considerably less emphatic, yet still fairly distant. 



Its resemblance in some respects to the notes of the Vir- 

 ginia Rail, suggested to me the King Rail, but I could neither 

 find one myself in all my explorations nor could I learn of any 

 one else finding the first individual of that species, until in the 

 summer of 1875, Mr. George W. Tinsley brought me one for 

 identification. He obtained it on the first day of August, on 

 the Minnesota river bottoms, some ten to twelve miles south of 

 Minneapolis. It proved to be an adult male in remarkably fine 

 plumage. He sought for the female and nest or young, but in 



