"7 
DEMOISELLE CRANE. 577 
The eggs of the Demoiselle Crane are two in number, placed side by side 
in the nest, with the small ends pointing in the same direction ; they are 
sometimes laid about the end of April, but more frequently during the first 
half of May, or not until the end of that month if the season be backward. 
They are pale buff or olive in ground-colour, spotted and blotched with 
umber-brown and with numerous underlying markings of brownish pink. 
On some eggs most of the spots and blotches are underlying and ill-defined ; 
others are only sparingly marked with one or two large irregular confluent 
blotches. The surface is rather smooth and is full of small pores, but does 
not show much gloss. The eggs vary in length from 3°8 to 3°1 inch, and in 
breadth from 2°2 to 2:0 inch; they very closely resemble those of the 
Common Crane, but are much smaller. Both birds assist in incubation ; 
and when one is sitting, its partner is generally not far away, standing 
sentinel, ready to give the alarm the moment danger threatens. From 
the wary habits of this bird, its eggs are difficult to find; it leaves the 
nest in a very unconcerned manner, walking for some distance, and then 
taking wing, but always returning as soon as the intruder has disap- 
peared. During the period of incubation the old birds are said to be very 
pugnacious, never failing to attack an Eagle, a Harrier, or even a dog 
that has inadvertently approached the sacred spot. The young are able 
to follow their parents very soon after they are hatched. Only one brood 
appears to be reared in the year. 
The Demoiselle Crane is gregarious during winter, and sometimes 
assembles in enormous companies, several thousands not unfrequently 
congregating together. In its winter-quarters in India this Crane is said 
to prefer the shelving shores and sand-banks of rivers, but it also haunts 
the banks of lakes and ponds. Hume, in the ‘Game Birds of India’ 
(iii. p. 34), writes:—‘‘They feed in fields in the early mornings, come 
down to the river or to large tanks about 9 o’clock, and spend a good 
part of the day there, though generally paying a second visit late in the 
afternoon to their feeding-grounds, and return to the water about sunset to 
pass the night upon some bare, low sand-bank, whence their harsh cries 
ceaselessly resound till they again leave, about or just before dawn. I 
have not observed them so perpetually on the wing as Mr. Vidal, whose 
remarks I quote below, tells us it is their habit to be in the Deccan, nor 
have I found them one whit more wary or difficult to shoot than the 
Common Crane. More noisy they certainly are, and the uproar that rises 
when, after a successful drift, you have fired into one of the enormous 
flocks, such as I have already described, is alike mdescribable and, to any 
one who has had no personal experience of it, incredible. Thousands of 
mighty pinions, almost convulsively beating the air at the same moment, 
and thousands of powerful windpipes, all simultaneously grating out the 
harsh kurr-kurr-kurr, &c., some shriller, some baser, each single voice 
VOL. II. 2P 
