234 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



about, uttering her loud call note incessantly, and is generalh' joined bj' the 

 male; but it is rarely that either can, even then, be approached within gunshot. 

 In one case the female was about 75 yards from the nest, and as we drew near she 

 staggered from side to side with trailing wings, looking as if in death agony- 

 The nest is frequently a mere hollow in the ground and is commonly lined' 

 with more or less coarse grass stems and straws. In one instance a nest was 

 found on a bare flat, and was lined with a layer of straws an inch deep, all of which 

 must have been brought for some j^ards; this is unusual however. 



MacFarlane (1908) who found this species breeding at Franklin 

 and Liverpool Bays and on the lower Anderson River says "the nest 

 is usually a mere cavity in the sandy soil, thickly lined with fine dry 

 grasses and a few feathers." 



Doctor Grinnell (1900) says: 



Doctor Coffin found a set of two eggs of the little l)rown crane in the Kowak 

 delta on the 14th of June. They lay about 6 inches apart on the level ground of 

 the tundra near a willow bush. For a diameter of 2 feet the ground was sprin- 

 kled with finely broken twigs; otherwise there was nothing to mark the spot 

 as a nest. 



George G. Cantwell sent me a photograph and some notes on a 

 nest he found on Kalgin Island, Cook Inlet, Alaska, on June 10, 1913. 

 The nesting site was a wild grass marsh of several miles extent, com- 

 pletely surrounded by small spruces, probably a partly dried up lake 

 in the center of the island. The nest was made of dead grass, wet 

 and soggy. The bird was flushed from the nest and returned several 

 times, trying to entice him away; it kept up a continual bugling., 

 which final!}' attracted its mate. 



Mr. Brandt says in his notes: 



The little brown crane nests on the grassy lowland flats that are just above- 

 high tide. Through these meander tidal sloughs, and scattered about are many 

 ponds mostly very irregular in shape. The grass that grows long and dense on 

 the flats is in early June dead and still matted down from the snow of the pre- 

 vious winter. Here on tlie ground the crane makes of this dead grass a nesi 

 about 3 feet in diameter and 4 to 6 inches high with an inner depression fron> 

 12 to 15 inches across. Some of the birds, however, merely tramp the matted 

 grass down and place their eggs upon this. On Maj' 27 a nest with two eggs^ 

 perhaps five days incubated, was found by an Eskimo, and after this date many 

 others were discovered. The male and female share in the duties of incubation, 

 changing places often, and at such times each bird calls, the one as it approaches 

 the nest, the other as it departs. The nest-changing call is different from the 

 regular notes and gives the natives a clue to the location of the nests, of which 

 they are quick to take advantage, for the eggs as well as the birds themselves 

 are considered among the finest delicacies of Eskimo home life. One native 

 brought in six fine fresh eggs for which he refused a considerable sum, preferring 

 to serve them to his family, as they are supposed to render those who eat them 

 immune from disease. 



Eggs.— Two eggs is the usual set laid by the little brown crane. 

 These vary in shape from ovate to C3"lindrical ovate. The shell is 

 smooth or slightly pimpled, with little or no gloss. There are many 



