Qrus americana. 55 



extent as in G. communis. The red skin of the crown does not extend 

 nearly so far back upon the occiput as in the other now well-kuowu 

 American species, the Blue or Sandhill Crane {G. canadensis), and 

 terminates in an obtuse point behind, in lieu of being there distinctly 

 furcate. On the forehead, lores, and cheeks the warty and granulated skin 

 is much concealed by black setaceous or unwebbed feathers. Irides pale 

 yellow. Bill dull black, rosaceous towards its base; the legs also blackish. 

 Length to end of tail, 54in. ; wing, 22iin. ; expanse of wings, 92in. 

 (Audubon). The young are of a light ashy colour, paler on the throat 

 and front of neck, with dull rufous margins to the wing feathers, and the 

 occipital region is also dull rufescent. Head wholly feathered. There is a 

 good specimen thus coloured in the British Museum, and also another with 

 similar but much worn plumage; but no example of the adult. In the 

 Regent's Park collection, however, there are characteristic living adults of 

 both this species and the Sandhill Crane {G. canadensis) from which my 

 descriptions of the adult birds of these two species have been taken. 



In the " Fauna Americana-borealis " the mature and young birds are 

 described aa different species, probably from the fact that the young 

 propagate before assuming the snow-white plumage, although (as it would 

 appear) having attained to the full size, inasmuch as the length of body is 

 given — doubtless from measurement of dry skins — as 48in. only, which still 

 is too great a length for G. canadensis, with which the young of the present 

 species has been so often confounded. According to Sir J. Richardson, the 

 plumage of those immaturely-coloured breeding birds is " yellowish-grey ; 

 dorsal plumage glossed with ferruginous ; neck above ash-coloured ; cheeks 

 and throat brownish-white. All the upper surface of the head, before and 

 between the eyes, covered with a red skin, pretty thickly clothed with 

 black hairs." " Immature specimens," writes Professor Spencer Baird, 

 referring to still younger birds, " have the entire head covered with perfect 

 feathers to the bill ; the feathers with black shafts on the regions which in 

 adults are covered only with black hairs. Colour of head and neck, pale 

 greyish chestnut. 



[A very spirited coloured representation of the young bird is given in 

 the Transactions of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, vol. I., 1867-9, 

 showing the light rufous brown of the head, upper part of the neck and the 

 tertiaries ; in the accompanying text it is stated to be " not unfrequently found 

 in the vicinity of Chicago ; though so different in its colours and its feathered 

 head from the adult white crane, it is now believed to be the young of that 

 species." When first discovered it was regarded as distinct, and was named 

 by Dudley, Grus Iwyianus, after Dr. Hoy, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1854. 



We are informed by Dr. B. Coues, that there are two eggs from the Great 

 Slave Lake in the Smithsonian Institution. 



Though from the same nest, one is uoticeably more elougated than the other, 



