THE AMERICAN CRANES. 139 



listen more intently for the sound of wings from 

 which to determine the proper time to spring to 

 your feet. No easy thing to contain yourself 

 when those piercing tones reverberate within a 

 hundred yards ! But when you hear the soft 

 fanning of the air above, and jump as you never 

 jumped before, the troupe of actors that throngs 

 the moonlit stage is worth coming far to see. 

 Scores of birds larger than geese, pouring a flood 

 of the most far-reaching sound that rolls from 

 living throat, are wheeling and sheering across 

 the starry night, with the moonlight glancing 

 from many a dagger-beak and many a waving 

 wing. And then if you have your nerve with 

 you, one comes whirling down almost upon your 

 head at the report of the first barrel, and as the 

 flame spouts upward from the second another 

 parts from the rest of the flock as they vanish 

 darkling into the night. 



Nowhere have I seen the two cranes so abun- 

 dant and tame as on the great desert of northern 

 Mexico known as Bolson de Mapimi. In the 

 northeastern corner of the state of Durango are 

 thousands of acres of this, in corn and cotton, irri- 

 gated from the river Nases. North and east 



