ih 
GRUIDA: CRANES.— ARAMIDZE: COURLANS. 66 
opposite it. Adult plumage pure white, with black primaries, primary coverts and alula; bill 
dusky greenish ; legs black ; head carmine, the hair-like feathers blackish. Young with the 
head feathered; general plumage gray? varied with brown. Length about 50 inches; extent 
- 90.00; wing 24.00; tail 9.005 tarsus 12.00; middle toe 5.00; bill 6.00. In the adult, the 
windpipe is quite as long as the bird itself — 50 inches or more, and over two feet of it is coiled 
away in the keel of the breast-bone, which is entirely hollowed out to receive these extraordi- 
nary conyolutions (fig. 99) ; the voice is smgularly raucous and resonant. ‘Temperate N. Ain., 
but apparently of irregular distribution, not well made out ; said to be or to have been common in 
the South Atlantic and Gulf States, and to have extended up the coast to the Middle States. 
Now scarcely known in the Eastern and Middle States. The chief line of migration appears to 
be in the interior, along the Mississippi Valley, Texas to Minnesota and Dakota, where the bird 
breeds, and thence spreading in the interior of the Fur Countries. So wild and wary a bird 
must be much influenced by the settlement of the country. Eggs 2 (or 3?), about 3.75 x 
2.65, light brownish-drab, rather sparsely marked, except at great end, with large irregular 
spots of dull chocolate-brown, with paler obscure shell-markings ; shell rough, with numerous 
warty elevations, and punctulate. 
G. canaden’sis. (Of Canada.) NORTHERN BRowN CRANE. General character of the 
species uext to be described; nakedness of head, and color of plumage substantially the same. 
Smaller; wing 18.00-19.00; tail 7.00; tarsus 6.75-8.00 ; bill along culmen 3.00-4.00! middle 
toe scarcely 3.00. Alula, edge of wing, primaries, and their shafts, black? Head of adult 
less naked? Supposed to be confined in the breeding season to Arctic America, thence 
migrating through Western U. 8. to W. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and southward. 
(Supposed to be the true G. canadensis Linn., 1758, ex Edw. Is G. fraterculus Cass. ? 
I must retain my doubts about this bird.) 
G. praten’sis. (Lat. pratensis, relating to pratum, prairie, field.) SOUTHERN SAND-HILL 
CRANE. ComMMoN Brown oR SAND-HILL CRANE. Adult with the bare part of the head 
forking behind to receive a pointed extension of the occipital feathers, not reaching on the 
sides below the eyes, and sparsely hairy. Bill moderately stout, with nearly straight and 
searcely ascending gonys, that part of the under mandible not so deep as the upper at the same 
place. Adult plumage plumbeous-gray, never whitening; primaries, their coverts, and alula, 
ashy-brown, little darker than the general plumage, the shafts of the primaries white. Young 
with head feathered, and plumage varied with rusty brown. Nestlings quite reddish. Smaller 
than G. americana; larger than No. 669; length 44.00; extent 80.00; wing 22.00; tail 
9.00; tarsus 9.50-10.00; bill along culmen 5.00-6.00; middle toe 3.50-4.00. This species 
has been said to lack tracheal convolutions, which is not true of the adult. The trachea is at 
first simple and straight, not entering the sternum; in the adult, about 8 inches of windpipe 
is coiled away in the breast-bone, the anterior half of the keel of which is excavated to receive 
the folds (fig. 100). The disposition is the same as in G. americana, but much less extensive — 
8 inches as against about 27 — a difference in degree, not of kind. Temperate N. Am., rare or 
irregular in the east, very abundant in the south and west; apparently breeds in sufficiently 
wild places throughout its range. Eggs (2) cannot be distinguished from those of G. americana 
by color or texture of shell, or dimensions ; the specimens examined average less capacious, 
and relatively more elongate; from 4.10 X 2.40, down to 3.65 X 2.10; average nearer 3.90 X 
2.60; series probably including eggs of No. 669. (G. canadensis Auct., an Linn. ?) 
48. Family ARAMID4:: Courlans. 
Consisting of a single genus, with probably only one species, of the warmer portions oi 
America; closely allied to Gruide in essential points of structure, and forming a connecting 
link with Rallide. The osteological and pterylographie characters are completely crane-like; 
