246 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The following interesting incident is related by George H. Mackay 



(1893): 



Mr. Horace Thomson of St. Paul, slightly wounded with a rifle ball at long 

 range an immature sandhill crane {Grus mexicana) which with several others 

 was resting on the prairie. At the report they all flew away except the wounded 

 bird and one other which apparently was its parent. The wounded bird, after a 

 number of unsuccessful attempts to fly (assisting itself by first running, accom- 

 panied by the parent which kept beside it), finally succeeded in rising some 10 or 

 15 feet from the ground, but it evidently could not long sustain itself in the 

 air. The parent bird, perceiving this, deliberately placed itself underneath the 

 wounded one, allowing it to rest its feet on her back, both birds flapping away 

 all the while. In this position she actually succeeded in bearing it off before 

 our eyes for quite a distance to a place of safety, where we would not follow it. 

 It was one of the most touching examples of parental affection in a bird tha 

 has ever come under my observation. 



Plumages. — The downy young of the sandhill crane, its sequence 

 of plumages to maturity and its subsequent molts and plumages are 

 all, apparently, exactly like those of the little brown crane, from 

 which it is, probably, only subspecifically distinct. 



Food. — Mr. Moore's excellent notes contain the following infoima- 

 tion as to the feeding habits of the sandhill crane in Florida: 



They feed in ponds, in water 4 inches deep; along their wide margins tliat are 

 drier, where only a little grass is seen, on the highest grounds, among the lowest 

 palmettoes and grasses, and also over the lands that are blackened by the sweep- 

 ing fires where no green thing is seen. In six stomachs, opened by me at vary- 

 ing times of the year, I was unable to designate any portion of the contents, 

 but in no one did I discover any sign of animal food. In some instances in 

 two birds, which were killed while feeding together in about 3 inches of water, 

 I detected a mass so nearly entire and having a peculiar bulb attached to a 

 fiber now and then, that, on proceeding to the spot where they fell, I was en- 

 abled to discover and identify it; I found it to be the roots of a small species of 

 Sagittaria. Another one contained 10 or more seeds of an unknown plant, as 

 large as that of coffee. All contained much sand, small white quartz, and 

 larger brown pebbles. I have now the sand and pebbles taken from one, which 

 weighed after drying 2 oimces, together with the 10 seeds just mentioned. 



Wright and Harper (1913) found these cranes in Okofinokee 

 vSwamp, in southern Georgia, where "they are said to breed in the 

 prairies, but at other times seem to prefer the pine woods with their 

 growth of saw palmetto and ericaceous plants. Here they find vast 

 quantities of huckleberries, and are doubtless attracted also to pools 

 where killi-fishes and tadpoles have entered at high water. " 



The varied bill of fare of the sandhill crane, as reported by various 

 observers in different parts of the country, includes much animal food 

 such as rats and mice, frogs, lizards and snakes, worms, grasshoppers, 

 crickets, beetles, and other insects. Dr. Amos W. Butler (1897) says 

 that in Indiana this crane is very fond of white potatoes and sweet 

 potatoes. On the fall migration it lives largely on grains, notably 

 corn, wheat, and barley, which it gleans from the stubble fields. Here 



