620 THE SANDHILL CRANE. 
portions of bill, neck, and tarsus; considerably larger than the preceding species. 
Nesting.—Nest; a platform of roots, reeds, weed-stalks, ete., raised slightly 
above water or mud of swamp. Eggs: 2, grayish olive or drab, spotted and 
blotched distinctly and obscurely with reddish brown, Av. size 4.00 x 2.45 
(101.6 x 62.2). Season; c. June 1st; one brood, 
General Range.—Southern half of North America; rare near the Atlantic 
Coast, except in Georgia and Florida. 
Range in Washington.—Common migrant and not common summer resi- 
dent both sides of the Cascades ;—decreasing in numbers as breeding range is 
settled, 
Authorities.—Grus canadensis, Temm. Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. 1858, 
656. (T). C&S. L*. Rh. Dt. Ds. J. B. B. 
Specimens.—( U. of W.) Prov. 
IF the pioneer West were to choose a bird symbol, none could be more 
fitting than the Sandhill Crane. Like the buffalo, and the Indian (at his 
savage best), the crane stands for that life of the wilderness which the white 
man may obliterate, indeed, but cannot subdue. He is the typical child of the 
desert, and between him and civilization there is a gulf fixed, a gulf which 
shot-guns and reclamation projects have done much to widen. 
The trouble began, of course, away back when it was decreed that 
his flesh was “kosher’—and not only clean but sapid withal, “much re- 
sembling that of the Swan in flavor,” as Nuttall observes. (Fancy using 
Swan's flesh as a basis of comparison! Truly we have made some prog- 
ress in the past century.) “In the autumn and winter,” Dr. Newberry 
said, “it [the Sandhill Crane] is abundant on the prairies of California, 
and is always for sale in the markets of San Francisco, where it is highly 
esteemed as an article of food.” Well, it may be true, but that is why 
the Sandhill Crane has become a tradition in states where it formerly 
abounded, and a bundle of nerves in most places where it still maintains a 
foothold. 
Alert, wary, and sagacious the Sandhill Crane always was, for even 
the hand of the Red-man was against him. These qualities have attained 
their highest development since the advent of the hungry Whites: so that a 
study of these birds is no longer classed as natural history, but only as 
morbid psychology. 
The case is not so bad on the East-side. where in certain sections, 
notably the Horse Heaven country in Benton and Klickitat Counties, the 
birds still maintain themselves in considerable numbers. In spring, at least, 
they feed upon the highlands until ten o'clock in the morning; then, as- 
sembling into companies and platoons, they proceed to a lonely spot on the 
Columbia River, where, if undisturbed, they drink and plash and croak for 
hours at a stretch, some lingering indeed into the night. 
