NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 241 



MEGALORNIS MEXICANUS (MUller) 

 SANDHILL CRANE 



HABITS 



The sandhill crane has a very peculiar breeding range, or rather 

 two distinct breeding ranges, separated by an area of more than 600 

 miles wide, in which it does not now breed. Its extensive breeding 

 range in the Northwestern States and southern Canada and its more 

 restricted breeding range in Florida, the Gulf States, and Cuba are 

 probably the remnants of what was formerly a continuous breeding 

 range. 



Since this chapter was written James L. Peters (1925) has shown 

 that these two separate ranges are occupied by birds which are prob- 

 ably subspecifically distinct, but, as their habits are doubtless similar, 

 I prefer to let this stand as a life history of both forms. 



The advances of civilization, the drainage of swamps and the cul- 

 tivation of prairies have doubtless driven this wary, old prairie scout 

 away from all the central portions of the United States; and they 

 are still driving it farther west and north into the unsettled wilder- 

 ness; the wilderness is fast disappearing and with it will go the cranes 

 and many other interesting forms of wild life. According to Prof. 

 Wells W. Cooke (1914): 



Its numbers have decreased decidedly in the past 30 years, and it is now rare 

 as a breeder in the southern half of the above-defined breeding range, although 

 within the last 10 years it has nested in southern Michigan (1907), northern 

 Indiana (1905), northern Iowa (1907), northwestern Nebraska (1904), and cen- 

 tral Colorado (1903). 



It nested in Ohio as late as 1897, in Louisiana in 1907, and in Ala- 

 bama in 1911. 



It is interesting to note that it still breeds commonly in Florida 

 where it can still find large tracts of uninhabited, open plains; here 

 it will perhaps make its last stand. While driving through the "flat 

 woods,*' or pine barrens, and the extensive inland prairies of Brevard 

 County in April, 1902, I was greatly impressed with the similarity of 

 these plains to the prairie regions of North Dakota, Saskatchewan, 

 and Manitoba. We first saw the cranes in the "fiat woods," through 

 which we drove for 6 or 7 miles, flat, level country with an open, 

 parkhke growth of large, long-leafed pines; among the scattered pines 

 the ground was covered with a low growth of saw palmetto about 

 knee high or with large areas of tall line grass. Occasionally among 

 the pines we found open spaces covered with prairie grass, or wet 

 meadows, or saw-grass sloughs. Beyond the pines we drove for 8 

 miles over the open prairie to the marshes of the St. Johns River; 

 the country here was as flat and level as any we had seen in North 



