138 SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



Birds that may occasionally be seen on the estuary 

 are the Stanley Cranes. They appear to be more of a 

 land- feeding bird than a wader, as whenever we saw 

 them they were either on the rough ground in the centre 

 of one of the islands, or else feeding among some rushes 

 which margined one corner of the largest island. They 

 are fine-looking birds, standing considerably higher 

 than the common Heron, and have almost the entire 

 plumage slate-grey, with the exception of the top of 

 the head, which is white, and the long black plumes 

 that hang down over the back. The young birds, 

 when they are two or three weeks old, are a rather 

 lighter uniform grey, without the black plumes, the 

 top of the head being of a light chestnut colour. Mr. 

 B.'s children, at the Grand Hotel at Port Elizabeth, 

 had three young Stanley Cranes, which were brought 

 from the mouth of the Sunday River by a Kaffir 

 woman ; they fed them on pieces of melon, on which 

 diet the birds seemed to thrive well enough, and 

 would follow the children about all over the garden 

 like dogs. These young birds make a low guttural 

 noise, a faint reproduction of the rattling croak that the 

 old birds utter. One day, I remember, I was photo- 

 graphing on one of the islands, when I was startled by 

 hearing three or four of these deep rattling croaks ; I 

 looked up, and there were five of these birds, sailing at 

 an immense altitude, with just the least flapping of their 

 outspread wings. They seemed nonplussed for the 

 moment, for they had evidently come in their dignified 

 manner by appointment, and I felt that I had usurped a 

 place which they had doubtless looked upon from time 

 immemorial as a sort of board room. I think they were 



