Older PALUDICOL^. 



Family GBUID^E. 



GKUS AMERICANA (L.). (204.) 

 WHOOPING CRANE. 



While yet the prolonged winter maintains its relentless hold 

 upon the northland, and deep snows conceal the demarking 

 shorelines of the lakes and streams, the Whooping Crane may 

 be faintly heard, and often seen against the cold blue sky, 

 winging his dauntless way to some unknown open sea still 

 nearer the undiscovered pole. In the last days of February 

 sometimes, but oftener in the third week in March, flocks of 

 ten to twenty are seen, and occasionally on to the 15th of April 

 such flocks continue to arrive, only a few individuals of which 

 remain to breed in the remote portions of the State, 



The only evidence I have that it breeds here is circumstan- 

 tial. Through a course of many years observation, individuals 

 of the mature ivhite birds have been obtained or well identified 

 during every month from March to November inclusive, quite 

 a number of which have found their way into the collections of 

 museums and private individuals. Both the Minneapolis and 

 St. Paul Academies of Natural Sciences have them, and I think 

 there is one in the museum of the State University, but I do 

 not know when they were all obtained. Amateur obligists have 

 several times brought me the eggs to purchase, claiming that 

 they were obtained in some part of the State, but I had doubts 

 about them which made them really of no value to me. Two 

 such were nearly four inches in length, with their reputed 

 color, markings, and warty roughened surfaces. 



They inhabit the most out-of the-way morasses and impene- 

 trable swamps, with little else but a knowledge of the local 

 habits of the larger waders to stimulate careful research by 

 competent observers. 



