MONOGRAPH OF THE CRANES 

 (GRUIDiE). 



INTEODUCTIOIil". 



The Cranes constitute an exceedingly well-characterised family of birds — so 

 ranch so that nobody who properly recognises any one of them as being 

 rightfully so designated, can possibly mistake a member of the group for 

 any other sort of bird. Yet the appellation of crane is perversely mis- 

 appropriated in many instances, so that it is difficult to understand 

 sometimes what kind of bird is meant when the name is used. Thus in the 

 Scottish highlands, and again in Ireland, the heron is popularly so 

 denominated ; in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand, 

 the white egret-herons (which are currently and somewhat contemptuously 

 known as " paddy birds" in India) are styled cranes ; and the great 

 adjutant-stork is frequently termed " the gigantic crane" by authors who 

 should know better than to perpetuate such a misnomer. Again, in North 

 America, the white and sandhill cranes of that continent are sometimes 

 respectively miscalled the white and sandhill storks ; and in Australia the 

 only crane of the country is chiefly known as the " native companion." The 

 name crane, like its equivalent in many languages, is derived obviously from 

 the loud trumpeting cries for which the birds of this group are particularly 

 noted, and may be compared to yepa^os — grits, grues, whence grue, &c. — 

 and the Indian appellations for different species of them, as saras or sdrrds, 

 li'drrkdrra, hdrrunch, &c. — always with a rolling sound of the letter ;-, and 

 therefore properly inapplicable to birds which do not emit such cries. In 

 general the trachea is elongated, and forms a convolution within a cavity in 

 the keel of the breast-bone, as in the trumpeter group of swans, being thus 

 figured at two ages in the instance of the Common Crane [G. communis) in 

 Yarrell's "History of British Birds;" but it is remarkable that this 

 structure does not occur in the crowned cranes [Balearicn), and (as recently 

 shown by Mr. A. 0. Hume, Ihis, 1SG8, p. 35) it is only slightly indicated 



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