ii4 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



up ; others are almost level with the water, in which they are 

 always built. The nest is always placed among sedges or 

 rushes, sufficiently short for the bird, when standing up, to be 

 able to see around, and is never built in tall reeds. It is very 

 easy to find, as the old birds never fly direct to the nest, but 

 alight some twenty or thirty yards away, and, walking up to it, 

 form regular trncks like a cattle-path, so, by following one of 

 these tracks, one may be sure of finding the nest ; nor do the 

 old birds fly straight away from it, but walk off quietly to the 

 end of one of these paths and then take wing. When ap- 

 proached while sitting on the nest, the bird slips off, crouches 

 down, and runs away for some yards." 



Eggs. Two in number, very rarely three ; of a coffee-brown 

 to a stony grey as regards the ground-colour. The eggs are 

 double-spotted, the underlying spots being dull purplish-grey, 

 while the overlying ones take the form of brown or reddish 

 smudges and spots, generally distributed over the egg, but 

 more often collected round the thicker end. Axis, S'S5-4'3, 

 diam., 2 "3-2 "5. 



THE DEMOISELLE CRANES. GENUS ANTHROPOIDES. 



AnthropoideS) Vieill. Analyse, p. 50 (1816). 



Type, A. virgo (Linn.). 



Unlike the True Cranes, the Demoiselle has a feathered head, 

 with a long tuft of silky plumes on the ear-coverts, and the 

 plumes of the lower throat are ornamental, elongated, and lan- 

 ceolate. 



Only one species of the genus, A. virgo, is known, extend- 

 ing from Southern Europe to Central Asia, and thence to 

 Northern China, and wintering in Northern and North-eastern 

 Africa as well as in North-western India. It has been observed 

 once only in Great Britain, when one of a pair was shot in the 

 Orkneys in May, 1863. As, however, the species is one which 

 is constantly kept in menageries, these may have been escaped 

 individuals. The same must have been actually the case with 

 the Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonind}, which was shot in 

 Ayrshire on Sunday, September lyth, 1871. This species is 

 also one which is often kept in confinement. 



