440 ORUID.E. 



sonorous voices distinctly heard even from their elevated 

 course. Occasionally they descend, attracted by newly sown 

 fields, or the prospect of finding food in marshes, on the 

 borders of rivers, or even the shores of the sea, but generally 

 they continue their flight unchecked towards their destined 

 resting-places."" 



These birds are seen also periodically in Spain, in Pro- 

 vence, at Genoa, and in Italy. Egypt, and various parts of 

 Africa, are said to be their winter quarters. They are seen 

 in Syria. Mr. Strickland, in his enumeration of birds at 

 Smyrna, includes a flock of Cranes seen in the plain of Sardis 

 at the end of April 1886 ; and M. Hohenacker includes the 

 Crane among the birds of the country between the Black 

 and the Caspian Seas. M. Temminck says that specimens 

 fi-om Japan exactly resemble those of Europe. " 



The Crane, having a strong and thick muscular stomach, 

 its food is of a more variable nature than is usual among 

 Avaders generally ; it will feed occasionally on grain and 

 aquatic plants ; at other times it makes a meal of worms, 

 reptiles, and mollusca. 



The nest is usually placed among reeds, thick osier-beds, 

 or the luxuriant vegetation of morasses, and the borders of 

 lakes, but sometimes also on the top of old buildings or 

 ruins, where solitude promises security. The Crane lays but 

 two eggs : these are rare in collections ; I only remember to 

 have seen specimens in the Museum at Paris : they were 

 four inches in length, by two inches six lines in breadth, of 

 a pale greenish olive ground colour, blotched and spotted 

 with darker green and olive brown. 



The singular structure of the windpipe and its convolu- 

 tions lodged between the two plates of bone forming the 

 sides of the keel of the sternum in this bird have long been 

 known. The first illustration here given is a representation 



