CRANE 1 1 1 



The Crane's power of uttering the sonorous and peculiar 

 trumpet-like notes, of which mention has been made, is commonly 

 and perhaps correctly ascribed to the formation of its trachea, 

 which on quitting the lower end of the neck passes baclcAvard 

 between the branches of the furcula and is received into a hollow 

 space formed by the bony Avails of the carina or keel of the sternum. 

 Herein it makes three turns, and then runs upwards and backwards 

 to the lungs. The apparatus on the whole much resembles that 

 found in the Whooping Swans, Cygnus musicus, C. hiiccinator, and 

 others, though differing in some not unimportant details ; but at 

 the same time somewhat similar convolutions of the ti'achea occur 

 in other birds Avhich do not possess, so far as is kno\Aii, the faculty 

 of trumpeting. The Crane emits its notes both during flight and 

 while on the ground. In the latter case the neck and bill are 

 uplifted and the mouth kept open during the utterance of the blast, 

 which may be often heard from bii'ds in confinement, especially at 

 the beginning of the year. 



As usually happens in similar cases, the name of the once 

 familiar British species is noAv used in a general sense, and applied 

 to all others which are allied to it. Though by many systematists 

 placed near or even among the Herons, there is no doubt that the 

 Cranes have only a superficial resemblance and no real affinity to 

 the Ardeidx. In fact the Gruidx form a somewhat isolated group. 

 Prof. Huxley has included them together with the Puillidse in his 

 GeranomorpH-^ ; but a more extended \deAV of their various 

 characters would probably assign them rather as relatives of the 

 Bustards — not that it must be thought that the two Families 

 have not been for a very long time distinct. Grus, indeed, is a 

 very ancient form, its remains appearing in the Miocene of 

 France and Greece, as well as in the Pliocene and Post-pliocene of 

 North America. In France, too, during the " Reindeer Period " 

 there existed a huge species— the G. primigenia of M. Alj^honse 

 Milne-Edwards — which has doubtless been long extinct. At the 

 present time Cranes inhabit all the great zoogeographical Regions 

 of the earth, except New Zealand and the Neotropical, and some 

 sixteen or seventeen species are discriminated. In Europe, besides 

 the G. communis already mentioned, we have as an inhabitant that 

 which is generally known as the Numidian Crane or Demoiselle. 

 G. virgo, distinguished from every other by its long white ear-tufts. 

 This bird is also Avidely distributed throughout Asia and Africa, 

 and is said to have occurred in Orkney as a straggler. The eastern 

 part of the PaliBarctic area is inhabited by six other species that do 

 not frequent Europe, G. antigone, G. viridirostris or japonensis, G. 

 monachus, G. leucauchen, G. nigricoUis, and G. leucogeranus, of which 

 the last is perhaps the finest of the Family, with nearly the 

 whole plumage of a snowy white. The Indian Region, besides 



