84 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



When a flock of cranes alight, they at once post their 

 sentinels. If it is a small flock of not more than twenty- 

 five or thirty, there is often only one that stands 

 guard, but if, as sometimes happens, the flock numbers 

 several hundred, there are several sentinels on duty. They 

 stand bolt upright while the flock is feeding and as they 

 are almost as tall as a man they have a good view of the 

 surrounding territory. Perhaps no bird has keener eye- 

 sight and is more cautious than the sandhill crane. I have 

 spent hours trying to creep up close to a flock of these 

 cranes, but I never succeeded. This was not wholly due 

 to my stupidity, either, for in all the years of my child- 

 hood I knew but one hunter to kill a sandhill crane, simply 

 because other hunters could not get within gunshot of 

 them. 



These birds have a peculiar habit of dancing during 

 the mating season. To a certain extent this custom is 

 common among the cranes and some other birds, but the 

 sandhill crane goes about the matter with a seriousness 

 and a precision that puts him in a class by himself. My 

 friend, Mrs. Phoebe Clark, president of the Tennessee, 

 Kentucky and Northern Railroad, gave me the following 

 narration of a sandhill crane dance she witnessed some 

 years ago in the sand hills fifteen miles from Larimore, 

 North Dakota. She said : 



"I was driving with a horse and buggy one afternoon 

 when, as I rounded the point of a sand hill in full view of 

 a small creek, I saw a flock of some nineteen or twenty sand- 

 hill cranes drawn up in a straight line on the prairie per- 

 haps a half mile from the water. When I first saw them they 

 were standing in a straight line as rigid as a company of 

 soldiers standing at attention. I stopped my horses at once 

 to watch them. Presently the bird at the head of the line 



