WHOOPING CRANE. 75 



eggs are two in number, as large as those of the swan, and of a 

 bUiish-white color blotched with brown. 



Whooping Cranes rise with difificulty from the ground, flying 

 low for a time, and thus afford an easy mark for the sportsman. 

 At other times they fly around in wide circles as if reconnoi- 

 tring the surrounding country for fresh feeding ground ; 

 occasionally they rise spirally into the air to a great height, 

 mingling their screaming voices together, which are still so 

 loud, when they are almost out of sight, as to resemble a pack 

 of hounds in full cry. Early in February Wilson met with 

 several of these Cranes in South Carolina ; at the same season 

 and in the early part of the following month I heard their 

 clamorous cries nearly every morning around the enswamped 

 ponds of West Florida and throughout Georgia, so that many 

 individuals probably pass either the winter or the whole year 

 in the southern extremity of the Union. 



It is impossible to describe the clamor of one of these roost- 

 ing flocks, which they begin usually to utter about sunrise. 

 Like the howhng-monkeys, or preachers, of South America (as 

 they are called), a single individual seemed at first as if 

 haranguing or calling out to the assembled company, and after 

 uttering a round number of discordant, sonorous, and braying 

 tones, the address seemed as if received with becoming ap- 

 plause, and was seconded with a reiteration of jingling and 

 trumpeting hurrahs. The idea conveyed by this singular asso- 

 ciation of sounds was so striking, quaint, and ludicrous that I 

 could never hear it without smiling at the conceit. Captain 

 Amidas (the first Englishman who ever set foot in North 

 America) thus graphically describes their clamor on his land- 

 ing on the isle of Wokokou, off the coast of North Carolina, in 

 the month of July: "Such a flock of Cranes (the most part 

 white) arose under us, with such a cry, redoubled by many 

 echoes, as if an army of men had shouted all together." But 

 though this display of their discordant calls may be amusing, 

 the bustle of their great migrations and the passage of their 

 mighty armies fills the mind with wonder. In the month of 

 December, 1811, while leisurely descending on the bosom of 



