220 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ing civilization, farther west and then farther north, for it is one of 

 our wildest birds, it can not stand human companionship and it loves 

 the great open spaces in primitive solitudes. 



Dr. E. W. Nelson (1877) wrote, half a century ago, that "a few 

 pairs breed upon the large marshes in central Illinois." Dr. R. M. 

 Anderson (1907) found it breeding in Hancock County, Iowa, in 1894; 

 and it was found breeding, according to Prof. W. W. Cooke (1914), 

 at Yorkton, Saskatchewan, in 1900. Having heard that whooping 

 cranes had been seen recently around Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, I 

 spent considerable time there in May and June, 1917, chasing up 

 various clues; several men told me that they had seen white cranes 

 there that spring and that they bred there regularly; though I did 

 not succeed in finding them, I have no doubt that a few pairs still 

 breed in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. M. P. Skinner 

 writes me that he saw five of these cranes in Yellowstone Park, 

 Wyoming, on August 4, 1914; after circling about high in the air, 

 they flew off towards the southwest. George Lang, of Indian Head, 

 Saskatchewan, "a reliable observer of long standing," reported to 

 Fred Bradshaw, that he "saw 15 whooping cranes pass over that 

 town on April 15, 1920"; and J. R. Garden, 20 miles east of there 

 "got within 50 yards of six whooping cranes in the fall of 1921. In 

 the spring of 1923 even larger numbers were reported from Qu' 

 Appelle and Tynan." Under date of October 1, 1923, C. E. Boardman 

 writes to me that, for the past 10 days, a flock of five adult and one 

 young whooping cranes have been seen in the vicinity of Long Lake, 

 south of Steele, North Dakota. Harry L. Felt, of Findlater, reported 

 to Mr. Bradshaw that he saw nine whooping cranes passing over, on 

 May 3, 1924. From the above records and from recent Texas 

 records, to be referred to later, it would seem that the whooping 

 cranes are not all gone yet. Let us hope that the few survivors will 

 long continue to outwit their relentless pursuers. 



Courtship. — Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton sends me the following 

 notes on what is probably a com'tship performance: 



While the lowlands were their chief haunts, they had always not far away 

 some high knoll on which one or more pairs would meet in the early morning 

 aud near sundown during spring and summer, and indulge in a sort of stately 

 dance with much bowing, capering, flapping, and trumpeting. Fragments of this 

 dance are sometimes rendered by the captives in zoological gardens. In some 

 sort, it is the practice of many, if not all, cranes. It bears much resemblance to 

 the mating dance of the prairie chicken. While dancing on the knoll, the cranes 

 were visible for a mile or two. This with their raucous and daily trumpeting, 

 called attention to the fact that a pair were nesting near. The result, alas, has 

 been the extermination of the cranes in most of the Northwest. 



Nesting. — Our knowledge of the nesting habits of the whooping 

 crane is mostly past histor}", about which very little has been pub- 

 lished. Nor have we much definite knowledge as to the exact limits 



