GRUS AMERICANA, WHOOPING CRANE. 531 



and one along the edge of the keel — filled with light, bony meshwork. 

 Excepting these cancellated portions, the whole keel is hollow, and is 

 occupied by the i'olds of the windpipe, iis follows: Coming down the 

 throat, the trachea enters the sternal keel at its anterior inferior apex, 

 and runs along the lower edge of the keel, inside, almost to the very 

 l)Osterior angle ; curving abruptly upward and forward, at about 45^, 

 it runs along the top of the keel just under the body of the bone to the 

 very front, where it appears ; curving next downward, it reenters the 

 keel just alongside its original entrance, passes about a third way to 

 the posterior end of the bone, then coils upward with a strong curve^ 

 folding on itself, to reemerge from the bone close alongside its first 

 entrance ; and thence passes up to the bronchi with a strong curve. In 

 fewer words, the trachea, entering the apex of the keel, traverses the 

 whole contour of the keel in a long vertical coil, emerges at the front 

 upper corner of the keel, enters again at the lower corner of the keel 

 and makes a smaller vertical coil in the center, emerging again where it 

 went in. On looking at the object from the front, we see three parallel 

 vertical coils, side by side ; the middle one is the trachea coming down 

 from the neck above ; on the left hand is the bulge of the first great 

 coil ; on the right is the windpipe passing to the lungs after it has made 

 its second coil inside. Measuring loosely, with a thread laid along the 

 track of the folds, I find there are abont twenty eight inches of windpipe 

 coiled away in the breast-bone — certainly over two feet; from upper 

 larynx to the entrance is about twenty-two inches, and there are about 

 eight inches more of the tube from its exit from the bone to the forks 

 of the bronchi ; altogether, ^/f^-e^^/i^ inches. The Whooping Crane has 

 a windpipe between four and five feet long — quite as long as the bird 

 itself. 



The distribution of the Whooping Crane appears to be somewhat pe- 

 culiar, as may be gathered from the foregoing indications. It is said to 

 be found throughout the Fur Countries ; but in the United States its dis- 

 persion is limited, and there is a difliculty in determining from the 

 accounts, since several authors have confounded it with the Sandhill 

 Crane. I find no satisfactory evidence of its occurrence in New England, 

 and Mr. Lawrence omits it from his New York list. Dr. Turnbull gives 

 it as now very rare, but remarks that in Wilson's time it bred at Cape 

 May, New Jersey. It is said to be common in Flori«la, where, however, 

 Mr. Allen "saw no White Cranes." It occurs in Texas. I have never 

 seen it alive excepting in Northern Dakota, where I observed it in 

 August, September, and October, and where, probably, it breeds. Its 

 princi])al line of migration appears to be the Mississippi Valley at large ; 

 accounts of its presence all along this, belt, from Texas to Minnesota, 

 for a considerable breadth, are unanimous and conclusive. Here it 

 seems to be chiefiy n)igratory, but there is every reason to believe that 

 it breeds in Minnesota and, as just said, in Dakota, as it also does 

 further north. 



Two eggs of the Whooping Crane are in the Smithsonian from Great 

 Slave Lake, where they were taken by Mr. J. Lockhart. Though from 

 the same nest, one is noticeably more elongated than the other, meas- 

 uring about 3.!>() by !*.<>."), the other being about o.dO only, with the same 

 width. The shell is much roughened with nuuieious elevations, like 

 little warts, and is, moreover, punctulate all over. The ground is a 

 light brownish-drab ; the markings are rather si)arse, except at the 

 great end; they are large irregular spots of a pale dull chocolate-brown, 

 with still more obscure or nearly obsolete shell-markings. A (jueried, 

 but probably correct set of eggs is in the collection Irom Dubu(]ue, lowik 



