280 GRUID^E BUGERANUS 



hardly developed at all ; the crown of the head is mingled slaty and 

 white. The female, like the young male, has the crown almost 

 pure white and very little traces of warty structure at the sides of 

 the face. 



Distribution. This is the largest and certainly the rarest of 

 South African Cranes ; it is widely distributed about the Colony, the 

 upland half of Natal and over Damaraland and Mashonaland ; though 

 not yet recorded from the Transvaal, so far as I am aware, it almost 

 certainly occurs there. Beyond our limits it reaches Benguela on 

 the west coast, and Somaliland on the east coast of Africa. 



The following are localities : Cape Colony Somerset West in 

 the Stellenbosch division, and Caledon, July (S. A. Mus.), Cradock 

 (Holub), East London (Bickard) ; Natal Upper Mooi Eiver in 

 Estcourt county (Hutchinson), Newcastle (Butler) ; Bechuanaland 

 Ngami region (Andersson and Fleck) ; Ehodesia Mashonaland, 

 (Ayres and Marshall) ; German South-west Africa rare in Damara- 

 land, Okavango Eiver (Andersson). 



Habits. This handsome and stately bird is usually found in 

 pairs, sometimes in small family parties, in open country where 

 there is plenty of swamp and moisture. It is usually a resident, 

 and each pair of birds occupies a denned district, returning to nest 

 in the same spot each year. In Damaraland, however, Andersson 

 states that it is only found during the rainy season. Eeptiles, 

 fishes, frogs and insects form the greater part of its diet, but it also 

 eats grain and is stated to ravage the mealie fields before the crops 

 are ripe in the summer in Natal. The note is a grating and guttural 

 one. 



Mr. Graham Hutchinson found a nest of this Crane on a small 

 rock in the middle of a stream, a tributary of the Upper Mooi Eiver 

 in the upper part of Natal. The nest was a large one, and was 

 built up from the rock which was just under water, to a height of 

 about two feet. It contained one egg. Gurney received an account 

 of a nest from a correspondent, Mr. G. A. Phillips. In this case it 

 was about five feet in diameter and of conical form, composed of 

 rushes pulled up by the birds and placed in water about five feet 

 deep in a large lagoon near the Vaal Eiver. Two eggs, the usual 

 clutch, contained in the nest, were on the point of hatching. 



Two eggs, preserved in the South African Museum, probably 

 those described by Layard as having been taken by Mr. Hugo, are 

 oval, pale olive-brown and faintly blotched or clouded with a darker 

 brown ; they measure 4'2 x 2*65 and 4-05 x 2-70 respectively. 



