BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 9 



GRUS AMERICANUS (Linnaeus) 



Whooping Crane 



Adult (sexes alike). — ^Wliole crown and anterior part of occiput 

 covered by a warty or granulated carmine reddish skin sparsely 

 covered by black hairlike feathers, these commoner on the crown 

 than on the occiput; lores and malar region, including a narrow 

 angular strip extending from the latter down each side of throat, 

 also naked, carmine, and similarly bristled, the bristles denser anteri- 

 orly; an elongate (about 50 mm. long) postoccipital wedge-shaped 

 patch of dark plumbeous feathers; all other plumage of neck, body, 

 wings, and tail pure white except only the primaries and their greater 

 upper coverts and the alula, which are uniform slate black; bill 

 wax yellow tipped with dull greenish or yellowish ; iris yellow, tarsi 

 and toes black; the eye surrounded above and below and in front, 

 but not behind, by bare skin, the lower eyelid feathered, the upper 

 nearly bare. 



Juvenal (sexes alike) ^. — Whole head feathered, including fore- 

 head and lores, the feathers on the parts that become bare in the 

 adults short and somewhat dusky; rest of plumage except primaries 

 and their greater upper coverts, and the alula whitish, heavily 

 washed, mottled, and blotched with pinkish cinnamon to cinnamon- 

 bufF and even to sayal brown, this color practically solid on the top 

 of the head; the upperparts of the body and the wings much mixed 

 with white feathers and cinnamon-buff ones, the latter more numerous 

 on the scapulars, interscapulars, and back, and less so in the wings; 

 the darkest of the colored feathers are in the scapulars as a rule; 

 primaries dull blackish; alula and greater upper primary coverts 

 dull blackish washed with buffy or ochraceous; bill as in adult, but 

 darker, more blackish at tip. 



Natal down. — General color of upperparts dull cinnamon to sayal 

 brown, deepening into mikado brown or russet on rump, where still 

 darker (liver brown or bay) along median line, continued along 

 median line of back, paler and grayer on neck, still paler behind 

 wings; underparts pale dull grayish buffy or dull brownish whitish, 

 tipped or suffused with pale cinnamon; bill pale buffy brown, flesh 

 color basally, with a small whitish spot on the upper mandible ; tarsi 

 and toes light brownish. 



^The length of time required to attain adult plumage is not known. It is 

 similarly not definitely known whether there are any progressive changes in 

 young birds or whether the adult plumage is acquired by a postjuvenal molt 

 at the end of the first year. 



