THE AMERICAN CRANES. 141 



extent of wing and six or eight inches in length, 

 of snowy whiteness that rivals that of the swan 

 except where several inches of black tip the 

 broad wings, the whooping-crane when floating 

 in the bright sunlight of the winter here is the 

 most graceful of all large American game-birds. 



Circling much of the time so far in the zenith 

 that he seems but a bit of down, and sending 

 through miles of air a note both wild and strange, 

 but ringing as the blast of a silver horn, it 

 seems almost a hopeless task to get a shot at 

 one. I had shot them before with the rifle, but 

 to get within shot-gun range had always been 

 too great a problem for all the care I could 

 exert. But they, too, have the common in- 

 firmity, and in the afternoon came winding down 

 out of the sky in leagues of spiral, and in the 

 evening and morning were drifting along the 

 corn and cotton and settling into the fields to 

 feed wherever it seemed safe. 



One morning they were flying low over some 

 corn into which the water from the ditch had 

 been lately turned ; the cranes and water-fowl 

 being crazy about the fields that are lately wet. 

 The stalks stood dense and tall, as they generally 



