202 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



ern Iowa, in company with the Sandhill Crane, Nov. 10-12, 1871, 

 just prior to a severe storm (Am. Nat., v,-i873, 346). John Kri- 

 der, in a letter to the editor of Forest and Streajji (i, 15, 1873, 235), 

 gives the species as very common at Lake Mills, Winnebago 

 county; and in his "Forty Years' Notes" (1879, p. 57), he says: 

 "This bird I found breeding in Winnebago county, Iowa, and was 

 very shy and hard to approach. It flies in 'great numbers in 

 autumn, toward the south." H. W. Parker also records the spe- 

 cies from Tama county (Am. Nat., v, 1873, 169). 



Dr. Coues says (Bds. of N. W., 1874, '530-1): "Its principal 

 line of migration appears'to be the • Mississippi Valley at Istrge. 

 ... a queried but probably correct set of eggs is in the [Smith- 

 sonian] collection from Dubuque, Iowa." 



W. W. Cooke states (Bird Migr. in 'Miss. Val, 1884-5, 84-85): 

 "In the spring of 1885 the Whooping Crane appeared at La Porte 

 City, March 30; Emmetsburg, March 23; Heron Lake, Minn., 

 March 31 . It was common at Emmetsburg April i ; Heron Lake, 

 April 3. It has been known to breed at Clear Lake, Iowa." N. 

 S. Goss (Bds. of Kan., 132-3), says: "A set taken May 2nd, 1882, 

 in Franklin county, Iowa, from a nest placed in a swale, and made 

 of flags and rushes, a platform^raised a little above the-water, are 

 in dimensions 4.01x2.60, 4.08x2.66." Keyesand Williams (Bds. 

 of Iowa, 1889, 120) state that it is "not uncommon during migra- 

 tions. Occasionally breeds in the northern part of the state." 



J. W. Preston, in an article entitled "Some Prairie Birds" (O. & 

 O., xviii, 6, 1893, 81), describes the nesting of the Whooping 

 Crane along the headwaters of the Iowa River, south of Crystal 

 Lake, in Hancock county, ''years ago, when northwestern Iowa 

 was a vast prairie, out into which few settlers had ventured and 

 the monotony was seldom broken save by some wood-fringed lake 

 or a herder's shanty." In early May, in the immense marsh 

 lying north from Eagle Lake, he secured a number of eggs of the 

 White Crane. "They had chcsen the center of the marsh for a 

 nesting-place, and there, a mile from the higher, shores, the 

 mother birds could be seen upon the nests, which were formed of 

 grass gathered together in a firm heap about one and one-half 

 feet high, and placed on firm sod, out of water, but very near it. 

 In the top of this heap was a very slight depression for the eggs." 



The writer explored the same locality on May 26, 1894 (Oolo- 



