234 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



its lower part over the breast, are of" a uniform, but not 

 very intense, shade of black. Every part of the head 

 and neck is fully plumed. Behind each eye there 

 passes off in a backward direction a tuft of pure white 

 feathers, three or four inches in length. These crests, 

 as they are improperly termed, are extremely light and 

 flexible, and have their barbs so loose as to float in 

 graceful undulations on the slightest motion of the 

 bird. The rest of the plumage, with the exception of 

 the outer halves of the quill-feathers of the wings and 

 tail, is of a uniform slaty gray. The secondary quill- 

 feathers are considerably longer than the primary, and 

 when the wings are folded form on either side of the 

 body a tuft of dependent plumes, curving downwards 

 towards their extremities. All the quill-feathers have 

 their outer halves of a dusky black. The bill is yellow- 

 ish or flesh-coloured ; the iris reddish brown ; and the 

 legs and claws approaching to black. 



Like most of the birds of the Wading Order, the 

 Numidian Crane is migratory in its habits ; but it never 

 reaches a high northern latitude, and the environs of 

 Constantinople are the only part of Europe which it is 

 said to visit. It is affirmed, but we know not on what 

 authority, to have been observed as far east as Lake 

 Baikal. The southern coasts of the Black Sea and the 

 Caspian seem, however, to be its proper Asiatic limits. 

 In Africa, which is truly its native country, it extends 

 along the whole of the Mediterranean and western 

 coasts from Egypt to Guinea, but is most abundant in 

 the neighbourhood of Tripoli, and throughout the tract 

 of country which constituted the Numidia of the an- 

 cients. It arrives in Egypt in considerable numbers at 

 the period of the inundation of the Nile ; and makes its 

 appearance about Constantinople in the month of Octo- 

 ber, being then probably on its passage from the Black 



