128 INDIAN SPOETING BIKDS 



dealers used to get hold of when I was in India, at any rate for 

 several years following 1894, it is liable to come in some years 

 in considerable numbers. The districts affected by it during its 

 stay, which is between October and March, are all in the North- 

 west, from Sind to Oudh, in which latter province it is called 

 Tunhi. It is very local and very aquatic, being almost always 

 seen in the shallow water of j heels and marshes, where Hume 

 found it fed exclusively on vegetable food, the bulbs, seeds and 

 leaves of various water-plants, especially rushes. The parents 

 displayed the greatest affection for their young, pluming its 

 feathers, and calling it to eat whenever they found a promising 

 rush-tuft, while if it were shot they would circle round in the 

 air for hours, calling disconsolately, and would return to the spot 

 for days afterwards. 



The call of this crane is much weaker than that of our other 

 species, " what," says Hume, " for so large a bird, may be called 

 a mere chirrup." But, like the sarus, it has a sort of set song, 

 to which the term chirruping can hardly be fairly applied ; 

 the attitude in which this note, which is like a more refined 

 and musical edition of that of the sarus, is given forth is 

 peculiar. At first the bird begins to call with the bill bent in 

 towards the breast ; with each note the bill is jerked further 

 forward, while the wings are lifted and the piuion-quills drooped 

 exposing their blackness, till, by the end of the song, the bird 

 is calling with bill and neck erect, in the typical sarus position. 



This is a very wary bird, and when obtained is not good 

 eating, while it is not a devourer of crops, so that there is no 

 particular reason to trouble about shooting it. Its breeding- 

 home is in Central Asia, Siberia, and Mongolia, and there its 

 feeding habits are probably different from its vegetarian 

 practices in India, for in captivity in England it readily eats 

 fish, and will wait to catch them like a heron, and devour young 

 ducks ; it also digs for earth-worms. 



Eggs taken in the wild state are still a desideratum, but 

 several pairs have laid and sat in captivity, though up to date 

 no young have ever been hatched. One pair in the London 

 Zoo nests in this futile way year after year ; the eggs are two 

 in number, and olive-brown in colour with dark brown blotches. 



