NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 247 



it becomes very fat and is much esteemed as a game bird. Hamil- 

 ton M. Laing (1915) gives us a very good account of its feeding 

 methods and its scouting tactics, as follows : 



Judging by the time he takes to a meal, one might be led to think that the 

 qviantity of grain he can store away at a sitting is prodigious. His regular hours 

 on the field are from 7 to 11 a.m., and from 2 or 3 p.m. till dark. But he is a 

 slow eater; he has not learned to chew and guzzle a whole wheat head at a time, 

 as the geese do, but must pick it to pieces with his dagger bill. Yet before he 

 leaves for the South he gets enough grain below his gray coat to round and plump 

 his angvilarity, and 15-pou«d "turkeys" — as they are usually called by the plains 

 folk — arc not uncommon. The main moves in his system are simple. Night is 

 spent usually in the shallows of marsh or grassy pond hole, morning and eve- 

 ning upon the grain fields, noon and early afternoon aloft or at a pond hole or on 

 the prairie. His plan is the reverse of that of the geese. The goose is a water 

 bird that comes to the uplands and fields to feed; the crane is a land bird that 

 goes to the water merely to drink and secure a safe night roost. But, though 

 simple, these movements have been modified in so many ways that the tyro 

 hunter who attempts to solve the combination and outguess his quarry finds 

 that he has tackled a knotty problem. First to the feedmg ground at dawn go 

 the scouts, the wise ones — it may be a ground used the previous evening, or it 

 may be an entirely new one — -the others follow when the coast has been declared 

 safe. In feeding, the several units scatter widely; every unit has one or more 

 scouts on high-headed guard; eyes are pointed at every angle, and approach by 

 a foe is almost impossible. 



Behavior. — Referring to tlie flight of this species Doctor Coues (1874) 

 writes : 



Thousands of sandhill cranes repair each year to the Colorado River VaUej', 

 flock succeeding flock along the course of the great stream, from their arrival in 

 September until their departure the following spring. Such ponderous bodies, 

 moving with slowly-beating wings, give a great idea of momentum from mere 

 weight — of force of motion without swiftness; for they plod along heavily, seem- 

 ing to need every inch of their ample wings to sustain themselves. One would 

 think they must soon alight fatigued with such exertion, but the raucous cries 

 continue, and the birds fly on for miles along the tortuous stream, in Indian file, 

 under some trusty leader, who croaks his hoarse orders, implicitly obeyed. Each 

 bird keeps his place in the ranks; the advancing column now rises higher over 

 some suspected spot, now falls along an open, sandy reach, swaying meanwhile 

 to the right or left. As it passes on, the individual birds are blended in the hazy 

 distance, till, just before lost to view, the lino becomes like an immense serpent 

 gliding mysteriously through the air. 



Its powers of locomotion on foot ov awing ar«' well ilcscribed by 

 Mr. Laing (1915), as follows: 



Mounted on his long, strong shanks, he covers the ground easily and thinks 

 nothing of a little jaunt of a mile from water iiole to feeding ground, or vice versa. 

 He is as ready to walk away from lurking danger as he is to fly from it. His 

 stride is like that of a man, and when he runs hard it is a fleet foot that over- 

 takes him. Though his shanks are trim, his thighs are thick and powerful; they 

 have the resiliency of steel, and the owner can spring and bounce 10 feet in air 

 when he takes to dancing or reconnoitcring. But if he is strong and able afoot, 

 on the wing he is superb. Though apparently slow in flight, it is necessary only 



