254 THE FOOD OF BIEDS IN INDIA. 



GRUID^E. 

 Cranes. 



Feed much on grain, a few also on insects, frogs, and fish. 

 Jerd. B. I. Ill, 661. Cranes are in the main vegetable feeders, 

 though they occasionally eat irsects, reptiles and fish. F. I. IV, 

 185. The food consists of grain, pulse, acorns, shoots, floweis, 

 roots, tubers, and the like, with the occesional addition of small 

 mammals and birds, reptiles, amphibiars, worms, irsects, ard even 

 fish. E. B. C. N. H., 253. 



1407. Grus communis. Common Crane. It feeds chiefly on 

 grain committing great havoc in the wheat fields, and in rice fields 

 in Bengal, but it also eats shoots of plants and floweis, and occa- 

 sionally, it is said, insects and reptiles. On one occasion I found 

 that the flowers of Carthamus tinctorius had been the only food 

 partaken of. It is stated in China to devour sweet potatoes. It 

 is occasionally hawked by the " Bhyri ' (Falco peregrinus). 

 Jerd. B. I. Ill, 665. 



' Perhaps minute shells or insects on sand. A Crane recently 

 arrived before there is grain, or young juicy shoots to eat, and that 

 is perforce feeding chiefly on insects, worms, small frogs, and even 

 fishes, is no doubt very indifferent eating, but the same bird four 

 months later, when for six weeks it has been gorging itself daily 

 with gram, wheat, rice, pulses, and peas of various kinds, almost 

 to the exclusion of animal food, is as fat tender and well-tasted 

 a bird as can be found. In India the Crane undoubtedly prefers 

 grain of all kinds, wheat, gram, rice and pulses, together with the 

 tender young shoots of these to all other food. Perhaps of a* 

 things they most love the young pods of arhar or dhal (Cayanus 

 indicm). Not only do they eat the young pods at such times, 

 but also quantities of the yellow pea-like flowers, and at other 

 times too, flower buds do not come amiss to them, and Jerdon 

 mentions one he had examined that had fed exclusively on the 

 buds of the safflower. Vegetables also attract them, and in China 



