Order PALUDICOLA. 
Family GRUID_. 
GRUS AMERICANA (L.). (204.) 
WHOOPING CRANE. 
While yet the prolonged winter maintains its relentless hold 
upon the northland, and deep snows conceal the demarking 
shorelines of the lakes and streams, the Whooping Crane may 
be faintly heard, and often seen against the cold blue sky, 
winging his dauntless way to some unknown open sea still 
nearer the undiscovered pole. In the last days of February 
sometimes, but oftener in the third week in March, flocks of 
ten to twenty are seen, and occasionally on to the 15th of April 
such flocks continue to arrive, only a few individuals of which 
remain to breed in the remote portions of the State. 
The only evidence I have that it breeds here is circumstan- 
tial. Through a course of many years observation, individuals 
of the mature white birds have been obtained or well identified 
during every month from March to November inclusive, quite 
a number of which have found their way into the collections of 
museums and private individuals. Both the Minneapolis and 
St. Paul Academies of Natural Sciences have them, and I think 
there is one in the museum of the State University, but I do 
not know when they were all obtained. Amateur odligists have 
several times brought me the eggs to purchase, claiming that 
they were obtained in some part of the State, but I had doubts 
about them which made them really of no value to me. Two 
such were nearly four inches in length, with their reputed 
color, markings, and warty roughened surfaces. 
They inhabit the most out-of-the-way morasses and impene- 
trable swamps, with little else but a knowledge of the local 
habits of the larger waders to stimulate careful research by 
competent observers. 
