304 



bird breeding of any importance, if it were not for additional 

 facts. As most unfortunately, I have never had an opportunity 

 either of studying the habits or of examining a recent specimen 

 of the Grus Americana^ I cannot make any minute comparisons 

 between the two species, founded on my own personal know- 

 ledge of both birds. There is, however, one point which I think 

 cannot be mistaken, that seems to me worthy of attention. The 

 Whooping Crane is represented in Audubon's plate with the 

 whole of the head, with the exception of the occiput and a narrow 

 strip from the eye backwards, naked ; I cannot think that the 

 papillated skin, covering the upper part of the head only of the 

 Sandhill Crane, and possessing all the properties of an erectile 

 tissue, would, after the bird was sufficiently adult to carry on the 

 function of reproduction, be increased so as to cover the space 

 it does in the Whooping Crane. 



Audubon, in his description of this bird, says, that it is found 

 in Florida only during the winter months ; and that Bartram, 

 when he affirmed that it was a constant resident, must have mis- 

 taken the Wood Ibis for it. How Audubon could Iiave supposed 

 that any person, however unobservant, who had ever seen the 

 two birds, could mistake the one for the other, I do not under- 

 stand. The loud notes of the Whooping Crane can be heard 

 every still morning for miles, while the only note the Ibis ever 

 makes is a feeble sort of grunt. The Crane flies by a regular 

 succession of slow and heavy, but vigorous flappings of the 

 wings, while on the other hand the Ibis passes the greater part of 

 its time, when in the air, in soaring in circles, like the Turkey 

 Buzzard, and when flying from place to place, proceeds by a 

 regular succession of flappings and sailings. 



During the winter months the Sandhill Cranes are seen in 

 flocks of a greater or lesser number of individuals. By the first 

 of February they have separated into pairs, and after this time 

 are seldom seen in a greater number than two or three pairs ; 

 generally, however, a single pair, flying or feeding together. 

 Their food consists at this time almost wholly of a root called 

 by the inhabitants pink root, which grows in all the wet Savan- 

 nahs, and is of about the size of a pipe-stem, of a fine pink color 

 internally, and possesses the same quality as madder, of coloring 

 the bones of animals red. About the middle of March, they com- 



