GBUIB^: CRANES. — ABAMIDJE : COUBLANS. 667 



opposite it. Adult plumage pure white, with black primaries, primary coverts and alula ; bill 

 dusky greenish ; legs black ; head caruiine, the liair-lik(! feathers blackish. Young with the 

 head feathered; general plumage gray f varied with brown. Length about 50 inches ; extent 

 90.00; wang 24.00; tail 9.00; tarsus 12.00; middle toe 5.00; bill 6.00. In the adult, the 

 windpipe is quite as long as the bird itself — 50 inches or more, and over two feet of it is coiled 

 away in the keel of the breast-bone, which is entirely hollowed out to receive these extraordi- 

 nary convolutions (tig. 99) ; the voice is singularly raucous and resonant. Temperate N. Am., 

 but apparently of iiTegular distribution, not well made out ; said to be or to have been common in 

 the South Atlantic and Gulf States, and to have extended up the coast to the Middle States. 

 Now scarcely known in the Eastern and Middle States. The chief line of migration appears to 

 be in the interior, along the Mississippi Valley, Texas to Minnesota and Dakota, where the bird 

 breeds, and thence spreading in the interior of the Fur Countries. So wild and wary a bird 

 must be mucli influenced by the settlement of the country. Eggs 2 (or 3?), about 3.75 X 

 2.65, light brownish-drab, rather sparsely marked, except at great end, with large irregular 

 spots of dull chocolate-brown, with paler obscure shell- markings ; shell rough, with numerous 

 warty elevations, and punctulate. 



G. canaden'sis. (Of Canada.) Northern Brown Crane. General character of the 

 species next to be described ; nakedness of head, and color of plumage substantially the same. 

 Smaller; wing 18.00-19.00; tail 7-00; tarsus 6.75-8.00; bill along culmen 3.00-4.00 ! middle 

 toe scarcely 3.00. Alula, edge of wing, primaries, and their shafts, black ? Head of adult 

 less naked ? Supposed to be confined in the breeding season to Arctic America, thence 

 migrating through Western U. S. to W. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and southward. 

 (Supposed to be the true G. canadensis Linn., 1758, ex Edw. Is G. fraterculus Cass, f 

 I must retain my doubts about this bird.) 



G. praten'sis. (Lat. ^yratensis, relating to pratum, prairie, field.) Southern Sand-hill 

 Crane. Common Brown or Sand-hill Crane. Adult with the bare part of the head 

 forking behind to receive a pointed extension of the occipital feathers, not reaching on the 

 sides below the eyes, and sparsely hairy. Bill moderately stout, with nearly straight and 

 scarcely ascending gonys, that part of the under mandible not so deep as the upper at the same 

 place. Adult plumage plumbeous-gray, never whitening; primaries, their coverts, and alula, 

 ashy-brown, little darker than the general plumage, the shafts of the primaries white. Young 

 with head feathered, and plumage varied with rusty brown. Nestlings quite reddish. Smaller 

 than G. americana ; larger than No. 669 ; length ii.OO ; extent 80.00 ; wing 22.00 ; tail 

 9.00; tarsus 9.50-10.00; bill along culmen 5.00-6.00; middle toe 3.50-4.00. This species 

 has been said to lack tracheal convolutions, which is not true of the adult. The trachea is at 

 first simple and straight, not entering the sternum ; in the adult, about 8 inches of windpipe 

 is coiled away in the breast-bone, the anterior half of the keel of which is excavated to receive 

 the folds (fig. 100). The disposition is the same as in G. americana, but much less extensive — 

 8 inches as against about 27 — a difterence in degree, not of kind. Temperate N. Am., rare or 

 irregular in the east, very abundant in the south and west ; apparently breeds in sufficiently 

 wild places throughout its range. Eggs (2) cannot be distinguished from those of G. americana 

 by color or texture of shell, or dimensions ; the specimens examined average less capacious, 

 and relatively more elongate; from 4.10 X 2.40, down to 3.65 X 2.10; average nearer 3.90 X 

 2.60 ; series probably including eggs of No. 669. (G. canadensis Auct., an Linn. ?) 



48. Family ARAMID^ : Courlans. 



Consisting of a single genus, with probably only one species, of the warmer portions of 

 America; closely allied to Gruidce in essential points of structure, and forming a connecting 

 link witli Ballidcc. The osteological and pterylographic characters are completely crane-like ; 



