36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 85 



times south of Georgia. These records from the Pleistocene are 

 therefore of exceptional interest. This species is now nearly extinct, 

 only a few individuals being known to exist in the interior of our 

 country. It has not been recorded previously as a fossil. 



GRUS CANADENSIS (Linnaeus) 



Gray crane 

 Ardea canadensis Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. i, 1758, p. 141. 



Remains of gray cranes are common in the deposits at Melbourne 

 and in the Seminole area, and contain representatives of two forms, 

 one large in size and the other small. The large form has the dimen- 

 sions of Grus canadensis pratensis Meyer, the Florida crane, which is 

 resident in Florida today, and is supposed to be that race. There is 

 now recognized however another race, Grus canadensis tabida Peters, 

 of more northern and western range that resembles pratensis in size, 

 but differs in coloration, so that there is no certainty as to the form 

 that ranged in Florida during the Pleistocene. This larger bird is 

 represented in the Pleistocene! collections by a coracoid, a femur, and 

 part of a metacarpal, all secured by Gidley near Melbourne, and the 

 head of a metatarsus and the symphysis of a lower mandible collected 

 by Plolmes in the Seminole area, as well as by part of a tibio-tarsus 

 secured by Moore at Bradenton. 



The smaller race from the Florida Pleistocene has the dimensions 

 of the little brown crane, Grus canadensis canadensis, that now ranges 

 in the western half of the United States, and might be supposed to 

 be that form were it not that the Cuban crane, Grus canadensis 

 nesiotes, is a bird of equally small dimension. In fact the differences 

 between G. c. canadensis and G. c. nesiotes seem to rest on color 

 characters that appear not to have been definitely worked out. The 

 small form is represented in the Pleistocene collections at hand by the 

 distal end of a humerus, parts of two radii, and two coracoids from 

 Melbourne, obtained by Gidley, and the distal end of a humerus 

 secured by Holmes in the Seminole area. 



The occurrence of these two races in the Pleistocene of Florida is 

 suggestive of the modern condition in the western part of the United 

 States, where a large gray crane and a small one occur together during 

 migration over a considerable area. 



