222 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



dragging one leg, and sometinies spreading their wings. I yelled to the boys to 

 come over, as I had found a crane's nest. While they were coming up, the cranes 

 were approaching nearer until they were about 20 rods away. They would stand 

 perfectly still for a minute at a time, with the wings widespread and held out 

 from the body, and made a beautiful picture with their graceful snowy white 

 bodies and great black-tipped wings. On our coming toward them they flew a 

 short distance and lighted again. My companion and I went around in opposite 

 directions to try and get a shot at them, but the cranes were too wary to be 

 outwitted by such maneuvers and before we could get within 40 rods of them 

 they flew up again and lighted over in the slough nearer the nest. My brother, 

 who was sitting on the nest while we sneaked around, said they then came up 

 within about 10 rods from him, and would hop on one leg, stretch out one wing, 

 and try to decoy him after them. We could see the cranes far out on the prairie 

 for the hour or two we were around there, and even after we were out of sight we 

 could hear their loud singing whoops. The whooping crane's note seems to be 

 louder and has a more ringing and resonant tone than the sandhill crane's voice, 

 which has a rougher, rasping sound. But, let us speak of the nest. It was a 

 mass of grass, rushes and reeds about 2 feet across and 8 or 10 inches above the 

 water, which at this place was about a foot and a half deep. The water was open 

 for a few feet around the nest, but in most places was grown up with rushes and 

 saw grass. The nest was so solid that I sat down on it without sinking it into 

 the water. 



In 1914 the keeper at Buffalo Park, Wainwright, Alberta, told Mr. 

 Seton "that at least one pair of white cranes breed each year on the 

 west part of the Park." A. D. Henderson writes to me that a 

 friend of his, C. E. Mills, saw a pair of whooping cranes, about 

 the end of April, 1922, about 10 miles west of Birch Lake, Alberta. 

 The residents told him that they were breeding and were being 

 protected. 



The latest information regarding the nesting habits of the whoop- 

 ing crane comes from the Game Commissioner of Saskatchewan, Fred 

 Bradshaw, who has sent me the fine photographs illustrating the 

 home life of this rare species and his notes made in regard to it. He 

 has also sent me a copy of a very full and interesting report by Neil 

 Gilmour, a provincial game guardian, relating his experience in 

 searching for a nest, which he finally located on May 19, 1922, in 

 western Saskatchewan. I quote from Mr. Gilmour's report as 

 follows : 



This marsh is approximately' 3 miles long and from 1 to 2 miles in width and 

 comprises an area of upwards of 3,000 acres. It is a shallow marsh, the water at 

 no part being of a depth of more than 3 feet, and much of it being only about 

 knee deep. The entire marsh is covered by a heavy crop of grass growing to a 

 height of about 2 feet above the level of the water. As the marsh does not dry 

 out, the hay, or grass, is never cut, and at the time of my visit, the previous 

 season's growth everywhere covered the marsh with a carpet of brown. Over 

 toward the west end of the marsh there is a small irregular strip of land of pos- 

 sibly 10 acres extent that forms an island elevated, at the time of my visit, about 

 1 foot above the level of the water. Failing to see anything of the birds at the 

 east end of the marsh, I traveled westward along the south shore for a distance 

 of a mile and half, pausing from time to time and with the aid of my field glasses. 



