Grus americana. 57 



described in tte "Americaa Naturalist," 1880, p. 108, by Mr. Thomas S. 

 Roberts, wbo gives an engraving, from which the following outline is taken, 

 to show the extreme extent to which the convolutions are produced in 

 O. americana, and quotes the' description given by Dr. Coues, in his 

 " Birds of the North West." 



Convolutions or the Teachea in the Sternum of Grus americana. 



" The sternal keel is broad and tumid, and is entirely excavated. The greater part 

 of the excavation is occupied by the singular duplications of the trachea ; but there are 

 two — an anterior and a posterior — large empty air cells in the bone, with smooth walls, 

 and two other air cells — one superior, and one along the edge of the keel — filled with 



light bone meshwork The trachea, entering the apes of the keel, traverses 



the whole contour of the keel in a long vertical coil, emerges at the front upper corner 

 of the keel, enters again at the lower corner of the keel, and makes a smaller vertical 

 coil in the centre, emerging again where it went in. On looking at the object from the 

 front, we see three parallel vertical coils side by side ; the middle one is the trachea 

 coming down from the neck above, on the left hand is the bulge of the first great coil. 

 on the right is the windpipe passing to the lungs after it has made its second coil 

 inside." .... There are about twenty-eight inches of windpipe coiled away in 



the breast bone Altogether the Whooping Crane has a windpipe between 



four and five feet long, quite as long as the bird itself.] 



According to Sir J. Richardson : 



This stately bird frequents every part of the fur countries, though not in such 

 numbers as the brown crane (i.e., the very same species in the plumage of immaturity). 

 It migrates in flocks, performing its journeys in the night, and at such an altitude that 

 its passage is known only by the peculiarly shrill screams which it utters. A few pass 

 the winter in the southern parts of the United States : but the greater part go still 

 farther south. It rises with difiiculty from the ground, flying low for a time, and 

 affording a fair mark to the sportsman ; but, if not entirely disabled by the shot, 

 fights with great determination, and can inflict very severe wounds with its formidable 

 bill. 



Aye, and scratch too, as a matter of course, with the hooked claw of its 

 inner toe, like its congeners. Of his "brown crane," remarks the same 

 distinguished Arctic explorer as well as highly accomplished naturalist, 

 " This crane visits all parts of the fur-countries in summer up to the shores 

 of the Arctic Sea." Its breeding in the immature dress, as the same 



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