A 



merica 



n C 



ranes 



Manv of the "cranes" or "blue cranes" reported by country people are what the 

 bird students call "great blue herons." But cranes do occur in the Chicago area, or at 

 least they did so formerly; now one species is on the verge of extinction and the other 

 is rarely seen here. Our exhibit, a scene at Deep River, Indiana, shows the two species: 

 the white birds are the nearly extinct whooping crane, with a mottled young of the 

 year; the gray bird is a sandhill crane. 



The whooping crane has been called one of the most stately and most striking of our 

 North American birds. Its original breeding range was chiefly the central plains and 

 prairies of the United States and Canada, country that now is largely settled. Origi- 

 nally these cranes were abundant, but in 1876 E. W. Nelson had already noted a de- 

 crease in their numbers in northeastern Illinois, and wrote "once an abundant mi- 

 grant." With the settling of the country the survival of such a large, striking bird, one 

 that was good to eat, and that visited grainfields, became difficult. This species has 

 decreased in numbers until now it is known only from the two dozen or so of individ- 

 uals that winter on refuges in the Gulf of Mexico area. There are occasional recent 

 records of birds on migration seen in Saskatchewan, but where they nest we do not 

 know. Their foothold on existence is precarious, and extinction looms ahead. 



Exhibit in Chicigo lN,itur.ii Hrsrory Muscun 



26 



