Mr. A, Hume 07i Indian Ornitholog]/. St 



days, when they were so numerous in Norfolk and other English 

 counties, they used, I apprehend, to arrive at the time of wheat- 

 harvest, and feed exclusively on grain. Grain-fed Cranes are 

 delicious. The Common Cranes that have lately left us, and 

 which, for two months, had been daily gorging themselves in 

 our fields on grain of various kinds, were fat, juicy, tender, and 

 aclicately flavoured — in fact, to my mind, with the exception of 

 a Florican [Otis deliciosa), or one of our Norfolk Pheasants, 

 about as good birds as can be put on the table, and this al- 

 though five or six mouths before, when they first arrived, they 

 were stringy, tough, lean, fishy things, not worth eating, or 

 shooting even, except for plumes. 



I ought not to omit to notice that, out of more than twenty 

 specimens of the White Crane that I have procured (between 

 October and the middle of March), none had the tertials at all 

 conspicuously elongated ; and in no instance did these, when the 

 wings were closed, exceed the tail-feathers or longest primaries 

 (which usually reach just to the end of the tail) by more than 

 3 inches. It is possible that at the breeding- season the tertials 

 may be much more developed ; but such is not the case with the 

 Sarus, nor, I fancy (to judge from the magnificent trains of 

 plumes with which we here shoot them in the winter), with the 

 Common Ci'ane. 



The feathers of the hind head and nape are somewhat length- 

 ened, so as to form a full and broad though short subcrest, very 

 noticeable when a wounded bird is defending itself against dogs 

 or other assailants. It is a brave bird, and fights to the last, 

 striking out powerfully at times with bill, legs, and wings, but 

 most generally defending itself chiefly with its bill, with which it 

 inflicts occasionally almost serious wounds. 



Subjoined are descriptions of both old and young, and a 

 Table of dimensions of adults of both sexes. 



The legs and feet are a dull pale reddish-pink (dullest in 

 the young), varying to dull red, somewhat brighter on the feet. 

 In all but the old birds, the front of the tarsus, the ridges of the 

 toes, and the bare portion of the tibia in front, are tinged (the 

 first strongly, the others faintly) with dark brown, which, in 



