256 GRUIFORMES: ARAMIDAE CHAP. 
Northern Africa and India in winter. It 1s silvery-grey, with 
white ear-tufts, black sides of the head, neck, chest, primaries, 
and tips to the inner secondaries.  Salearica pavonina, the 
“ Crowned” Crane of the northern Ethiopian Region, is greenish- 
black above and dark grey below, most of the feathers being 
lanceolate; the neck is delicate grey all round, the secondaries 
are chestnut—the inner being somewhat decomposed ; white and 
yellow shew on the wing-coverts; a spreading tuft of twisted 
yellow and white bristles with black tips surmounts the occiput, 
while the sides of the face are bare—white above and pink 
below, and the throat is covered with black down. There is a 
very small throat-wattle in this form, but &. chrysopelargus, the 
“ Kaffir” Crane of South Africa, has it much larger and chiefly 
red, differing moreover in its greyer plumage, and white cheek- 
patch with only a border of crimson above. In &. gibbericeps of 
East Africa, the bare skin of the face extends almost to the nape. 
In Cranes the sexes are alike; but the young are browner, with 
rusty or buff tips to the feathers, or even with downy instead of 
more or less naked heads, as in adults. Immature birds lack the 
elongated plumes. The bill is usually greenish-grey, brown, or 
black, at times with a little red, but it is yellow in Limnogeranus ; 
the feet vary from greyish- or bluish-black to dull green or flesh- 
colour; the iris is generally crimson, orange, or yellow. 
The Upper Eocene of Hampshire furnishes the fossil 
Geranopsis as well as Grus, the Italian Eocene Palacogrus, that 
of Wyoming four species of Aletornis ; Grus occurs, moreover, in 
the Miocene of France, the Pliocene of Attica and the United 
States, while G. primigenia of the French and Italian Plistocene, 
with G. melitensis of the Zebbug cave in Malta, complete the list. 
Fam. III. Aramidae.—In this group, as in the Psophiidae (p. 
257), the osteology and pterylography are Crane-like, the digestive 
organs and style of plumage Rail-like; a link being thus formed be- 
tween the two Families. The long, hard bill is slender and com- 
pressed, with slightly curved tip; the tibia is partly bare, the 
metatarsus scutellated. The wing has eleven primaries and some 
dozen secondaries. The long tongue is said to end in horny 
filaments, the trachea is sometimes convoluted in males, the 
nostrils are pervious. 
Aramus pictus, the Clucking Hen or Limpkin of the Greater 
Antilles, South Florida, and Central America, is chocolate-brown 
