CRANES. 123 



Gallinaceous in shape, giving the whole head quite a pheasant-like appearance. The 

 plumage of the head and neck is short and velvet-like, this peculiar texture being 

 caused by an upward curvature of the shaft with which is combined a very soft and 

 almost downy structure of the barbs and barbules. . The general arrangement of the 

 pterylosis, however, agrees perfectly with that of the cranes proper, and, like the 

 latter, the trumpeters have the oil-gland furnished with a circlet of feathers at the tip. 

 One of the most remarkable osteological features is, according to Parker, that the 

 hu-rymal (preorbital) bone is followed by a chain of five to seven free suborbitals, like 

 those of the tinamus. " This cropping-up again of what the tinamus has adopted 

 from the reptile is very interesting, and is not the only character by which these two 

 birds may be connected." The sternum is unnotched, and truncated behind. 



Only one genus, Psophia, consisting of half a dozen species, is known, among 

 which is P. crepitans, the trumpeter. The name trumpeter refers to the loud and very 

 curious ventriloquous sound which these birds produce by closed mouth. Agami or 

 yakamik is the name by which they are known to the Indians. The species mentioned 

 is confined to the countries north of the Amazon, where it was met with by Richard 

 Schomburgh, who gives the following account of its habits : " It is found in the forests 

 all over British Guiana, and may often be seen in flocks of a hundred to two hundred 

 individuals. They do not seem to leave the forests at all. Being unusually easy to 

 tame, they are also found in the settlements of the Indians, ruling with undisputed 

 sovereignty the other poultry as also the tame quadrupeds ; even the big hoccos have 

 to submit to their sway. Their power of flight is so weak that, when the flocks fly 

 across a river of any consequence, several of the birds usually fall into the stream 

 before reaching the opposite bank, in which case they save themselves by swimming. 

 They seem to prefer the moist forests near the coast to those of the interior. Their 

 meat is palatable. They nest on the ground." 



The cranes, GEUID^E, have a longer, more compressed bill, and a harder plumage, 

 with the tertials usually elongated and drooping, or very broad with open and decom- 

 posed vanes, in the latter case capable of being raised at will to form a very striking 

 ornament. Several cranes have a smaller or greater part of the head bare and cov- 

 ered with papillae. As already remarked, they are schizorhinal, and the hind border 

 of the breast-bone is truncated. The formula of the thigh muscles is ABXY, BXY, 

 or XY. Some or rather most of the cranes have a very loud and resounding, 

 trumpeting or whooping voice, the depth and resonance of which is produced by the 

 peculiar convolutions of the windpipe within the hollow keel of the breast-bone. The 

 twistings of the trachea, which enters the keel below, at the junction of the merry- 

 thought, passes along the edge, then turns forwards, and comes to the front underneath 

 the body of the breast-bone, then turns back again, being differently bent and curved 

 in the different species before it finally leaves the hollow and proceeds into the inte- 

 rior of the thorax, act in a similar way as the convolutions of the French hunting-horn. 

 The most extreme development is found in the whooping-crane (Grus americana) of 

 this continent, which " has a windpipe between four and five feet long, of which no 

 less than twenty-eight inches are coiled up in the keel of the breast-bone." The length 

 and development of the convolutions increase with the age, and in the young they 

 are altogether absent. With regard to these we quote the following from Mr. T. I. 

 Roberts : " In the embryo crane just about to break the shell, the trachea does not 

 enter the sternum at all, and is perfectly simple. But the anterior part of the keel, 

 which is entirely cartilaginous and diminutive, is much more thickened, and a cross 



