GRALLATORLE. 333° 
dian Crane). Similar to the preceding in form, and almost in size; 
ash-coloured; a black neck with two beautiful whitish aigrettes, 
formed by the prolongation of the slender feathers which cover the 
ears. Those which have been observed in a state of captivity were 
remarkable for their fantastic and affected gestures*. 
The Common Cranes have a bill as long as the head or longer. 
Ardea grus, L.; Grus cinerea, Bechst, Enl. 769; Frisch, 194; 
Naum. Ed. I, 2, f. 2. (The Common Crane). Four feet and up- 
wards in height; ash-coloured; black throat; top of the head, red 
and naked; the rump ornamented with long, recurved and frizzled 
feathers, partly black. This bird has been celebrated from the ear- 
liest ages for its regular migrations from north to south in the au- 
tumn, and vice versd in the spring, which it effects in immense and 
well-ordered bodies. It feeds on grain, but prefers the worms and 
insects of marshy grounds. This species is often mentioned by the 
ancient writers, because the course of its migrations seems to be 
through Greece and Asia Minor 7}. 
Between the Cranes and Herons, we must place 
Ard. scolopacea, Gm.; Le Courlan, or Courliri, Enl. 848 f, 
whose bill, thinner and more cleft than that of the Cranes, is in- 
flated near the last third of its length, and whose toes, all tolerably 
long, are without any intervening membrane whatever. It has the 
habits, and is the size of a Heron; the plumage is brown, with two 
white pencils on the neck. 
Ard. helias, L.; Le Caurale (Euryryea, lilig.§); Oiseau du soleil, 
&c., Enl. 702. (The Sun-Bird). The commissure of its bill, 
which is more slender than that of the Cranes, but furnished with 
similar nasal fosse, extends to beneath the eyes, like that of the 
Herons, but the bill itself is destitute of the naked skin at its base. 
It is about the size of a Partridge, and its long slender neck, broad 
and open tail, and rather short legs, give it a very different appear- 
ance from that of any other Wader. Its plumage, shaded in bands 
and lines with brown, fawn-colour, red, grey and black, recalls to 
our minds the colouring of the most beautiful of the nocturnal Lepi- 
doptera. It is found on the banks of the rivers in Guiana. 
The second tribe is more carnivorous, and is known by its stronger bill 
and larger toes: we may place at its head, 
* The anatomists of the Institute had applied to this bird, on account of its ges- 
tures, the names of Scops, Otus, and Asio, by which the ancients designated the 
Ducs of Europe (Bubo). Buffon, who had so well refuted this error as regarded 
the Dues, falls into it himself, from forgetfulness, when speaking of the Ard. virgo. 
| To this genus also belong Ard. canadensis, Edw. 133; the Grue @ collier, Enl. 
§65, and the Crane of India, Edw. 45, (Ard. antigone) Vieill., Gal. 256;—the Grue 
blanche, Enl. 889, (Ard. americana) and the Ard. gigantea, Pall., It., 11, No. 30, t. I, 
which does not appear to us to differ in the least from the white one;—finally, the 
Ard. carunculata, which is not a Heron, as supposed by Gmelin. 
t Vieillot has made his genus Aramus, Gal. p. 252, from this bird; Spix, pl. 91, 
calls it Rallus ardeotdes. 
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