NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 219 



Columbia (Washington, one taken in August 1901); New Jersey 

 (Elizabeth, August 16, 1922 and Woodbine, May 23, 1891): Penn- 

 sylvania (near Philadelphia, Ten-mile Creek, Glenolden, April 23, 

 1922 and Berwyn, May 14, 1916); New York (Freeport,Long Island, 

 April, 1893. Wading River, April, 1901, near Orient about 1892 and 

 May 4 and 7, 1905) ; Rhode Island (Newport, August, 1892 and June 

 15, 1778, and Tiverton, April 23, 1886); Massachusetts (Province- 

 town, March 8, 1891, Lynn, October, 1862, and Somerville, July 30, 

 1878); Maine (Back Cove, April 13, 1901, and Portland, April 11, 

 1906) ; Nova Scotia (Cape Sable Island, April 13, 1904, and one prev- 

 iously at the same place); Ontario (near Toronto, August 15, 1898); 

 Iowa (Council Bluffs, May 2, 1843, Lee County, June 2, 1883, Omaha 

 [Iowa side]. May 1, 1892, Florence Lake, August 23, 1903, and Jack- 

 son County, September 15, 1892) ; Nebraska (Beatrice, July 19, 1901) ; 

 and Colorado (Salida, May 1, 1908 and Byers, May 3, 1914). 



Egg dates. — Florida: 25 records, March 25 to May 15; 13 records 

 April 4 to 26. Texas: 8 records, April 13 to May 23. 



Order PALUDICOLAE, Cranes, Rails, etc. 

 Family MEGALORNITHIDAE, Cranes 



MEGALORNIS AMERICANUS (Linnaeus) 

 WHOOPING CRANE 



HABITS 



This magnificent species, one of the grandest and most striking of 

 North American birds, is supposed to be on the verge of extinction. 

 In its former abundance, its great migration flights, its curious con- 

 ventions, in which it indulged in grotesque dances, and its interest- 

 ing aerial evolutions must have formed some of the most spectacu- 

 lar performances in American ornithology. This is the tallest and 

 most stately of all our birds and, as Coues (1874) says, when seen 

 on the prairies, "its immense stature is sometimes singularly exag- 

 gerated by that quality of the prairie air which magnifies distant ob- 

 jects on the horizon, transforming sometimes a weed into a man." 

 He knew of a person who mistook a sandhill crane for one of his 

 stray mules and went in search of it. Once he himself mistook a 

 whooping crane for an antelope feeding with its broad white stern 

 toward him, and attempted to stalk it, until the "antelope" spread 

 its broad, black-tipped wings and flew awa}". 



Like many of our larger birds and mammals, particularly those 

 that lived on the broad plains of the interior, the whooping crane 

 has been steadily reduced in numbers and has become entirely extir- 

 pated in much of its former range. It has retreated before advanc- 



