THE SILENT DANCER 85 



walked out in front of the others and solemnly began danc- 

 ing. He would hop first on one leg and then on the other, 

 jump up and down, and whirl about, sometimes flapping 

 his wings. This procedure continued from three to five 

 minutes, when he solemnly marched back and took his place 

 at the head of the line and the bird next to him walked out 

 and went through the same performance. I sat there for 

 more than an hour and watched until every bird in the line 

 had taken his turn and performed his dance. When the 

 last one had finished, the bird at the head of the line started 

 the dance over again. After two or three had danced the 

 second time, feeling that I could wait no longer, I drove 

 away leaving them undisturbed. During all this time not 

 one of the birds had uttered a sound." 



Shy as these birds are at other times, during their love 

 making and dancing season they do not seem to station any 

 sentinels at all, but trust to the God of the wildlings to 

 take care of them. They nest in rookeries, often large 

 numbers nesting in a small space. The nests are built in 

 marshy places on tussocks, often a dozen or fifteen nests 

 being found in a group. This, however, may not be be- 

 cause they love to be together so much as because there are 

 few choice places to nest. 



I happened to be camping on the Brazos river, Texas, 

 in 1903, when the sandhill cranes began coming in from 

 the north, and I was surprized at their enormous num- 

 bers. There was not an hour in the day or night that a 

 dozen or more flocks did not arrive, and as the new arrivals 

 were not only noisy but were greeted by thousands of 

 birds that had already arrived, they kept me awake most 

 of the night. I had always heard that there are occasion- 

 ally white sandhill cranes but, until on this occasion, I 

 had never seen one. I saw three snow white sandhill cranes 

 that week. It has been suggested to me that they were 



