Balearica jjavonina. • 19 



Mr. T. Ayres lias obtained a young bird, now preserved in the British 

 Museum, which is thus described by Mr. J. H. Gurney {Ibis, 1877, p. 348): 



This specimen, which was nearly full-grow u, had the irides light ash-colour; the 

 bill black, but with the base of the lower mandible pale ; the bare skin between the 

 bill and the eye black, the adjacent space, which is occupied by the wattles in the 

 adult, thickly clothed with short yellowish white down ; and the legs and feet ashy 

 black. Its plumage differs from that of the adult bird in the following particulars :— 

 The front part of the head, instead of being black, as in the adult, is a rich fulvous, 

 with a very few small black spots intermixed ; the crest, which is about half-grown, the 

 back of the head, and the upper part of the neck and throat are of a similar hue ; but 

 the colour, especially on the neck and throat, is paler than on the forehead, and is 

 varied on the sides of the neck by the dark bases of the feathers being apparent ; the 

 mantle is slaty black, with narrow tips to the feathers, some of these tips being rufous, 

 others (especially those nearest the wings) being pale brown ; the wing-coverts are 

 white, but with most of the feathers variegated by a subterminal slate-coloured mark 

 and a much narrower rufous brown tip ; and with the further exception of the coverts 

 of the tertials, in which each feather is wholly banded with alternate transverse bars of 

 slate-colour and rufous ; on the bastard wing the feathers are more slate-coloured than 

 in the adult, but have not also, as in the adult, a tinge of rufous ; the lower back is of 

 a dark slate-colour intermingled with white, and with rufous tips to those feathers 

 which lie nearest to the thighs and upper tail-coverts, the latter of which are black, 

 tipped with fulvous ; the under tail-coverts are composed of long downy feathers of a 

 pale buff colour, transversely barred with dull black, the abdomen and thighs are pale 

 buff, slightly mingled with black ; the breast and flanks are slaty black, with narrow 

 pale buff edges.] 



BALEARICA PAVONINA (Linn.). 



THE WEST AFRICAN CROWNED CRANE. 



Ardea PAVONINA (Linn.), Syst. Nat., vol. i., p. 233. (1766.) 

 Balearica (Briss), Ornith., vol. v., p. 511, pi. 41. (1760.) 

 AnthkopoYdes pavoninus (Bennett), P. Z. S. 1833, p. 118. 

 Anthropoides PAVONINA (VieilL), Gal. Ois., vol. ii., p. 144. (1834.) 

 (Plate unnumbered), erroneously figured with red back — 

 Young figured in plate 257. 

 Balearic Crane, Bree, Birds of Europe, 2nd edit., vol. v., p. 33. 



In this species the predominant hue of the plumage is blackish, with the 

 conspicuous nude cheek-patch white above, and deep rose-red for the lower 

 half, this red being much more extended than in the other species, as 

 well as differently placed. The throat-wattle, so prominently shown by 

 the living B. regidorum, does not appear in the living B. pavonina, though 

 represented to do so in the figures cited ; its existence would therefore be 

 unsuspected, unless specially looked for. Dr. Bree's figure is also much 



