23 



II.-GRUS. 



The ordinary cranes have (with one exception) an elongated trachea, which 

 forms a convolution within a cavity in the keel of the breast bone, as in the 

 trumpeter group of swans, and raoi'e especially as in the Hooper Cygnus 

 musieiis. The bill is longer than in the crowned cranes, with the nostrils 

 considerably more elongated j the plumage is smooth and compact, mostly 

 of a blue grey or white, with more or less of black, and tipped with rusty 

 edgings to the feathers in yearling birds, while the tertiaries are in some of 

 the species elongated and drooping, in others of more or less open texture, 

 and in one sub-group erectile. 



Following the crowned cranes, there are two species which have the bill 

 comparatively short, and which also have lengthened pointed feathers 

 pendent from the breast ; the convolution of the trachea within the keel of 

 the breast bone is not to so great an extent as in the others (with the 

 extraordinary exception of G. leucogeranos). The face and crown are 

 wholly feathered, and the tertiary plumes of the wing are much elongated, 

 so as commonly to be mistaken for the tail when the wings are closed. 

 Both are African, but one of them is equally Asiatic. By some orni- 

 thologists these two species are recognised as constituting a genus styled 

 Ahthropoides by Vigors, while the larger of them is again separated 

 by others under the name Tetrapteryu: ; unsuitable as well as needless 

 appellations. 



GRUS PARADISE A (Light.). 

 STANLEY OR PARADISE CRANE. 



Ardea pakadisea, Licht. Cat. rerum. natural, rariss. Hamburg, 



p. 28. (1793.) 

 Tetrapteris capensis, Thunberg. Vetensk. Akad. Hand. Stockh., 



p. 212, t. 8. (1811.) 

 Grus paradisea, Licht. Verzeich. d. Doubletten d. Zool. Mus. 



Berlin, p. 78. (1823.) 

 Anthropojdes stanletanus. Vigors, Zool. Jour., vol. ii., p. 234, 



pi. viii. (1826.) 

 Grus capensis, Lessou. Traite Ornith., p. -587. (1831.) 

 Scops pabadiseus, Gray, Genera of Birds, vol. iii., p. 553. (1845.) 

 Gebanus paradiseus, Bonaparte, Consp. Avium, vol. ii., 



p. 101. (1857.) 

 The Blue Crane of South Africa. 



This eleg.'int species stands about 4ift. high at the crowti, and its 

 lengthened tertiaries reach quite, or very nearly, to the giouud. The 



