102 NOTES ON THE 
lated, thinly beset with short scattered black hairs; feathers of 
occiput advancing forward in an obtuse angle, the gray feath- 
ers along this point and over the auricular region, tinged with 
plumbeous. a 
Length, 48; wing, 22; tarsus, 10; commissure, 6. 
Habitat, interior of North America 
I found immense fiocks of Sandhill Cranes in the Sacramento 
valley, not far from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada moun- 
tains, in 1870, about the middle of February. But not any 
larger are found there than in the flat prairies along the Red 
river in northern Minnesota, two months later in the spring. 
There are times at that season of the year when their hoarse 
cronkings may be heard almost continuously in some localities. 
At the time of mating, the males have a habit of rising to 
immense elevations, and beating large circles while they main- 
tain their notes for hours at atime. These can be distinctly 
heard after the bird has risen to sucha height as to be beyond 
the range of the best human vision. 
Family RALLID®. 
RALAUS ELEGANS Auvpuspon. (208. ) 
KING RAIL. 
For many years after I became a resident of the State, my 
duties called me daily considerable distance into the country in 
various directions, and not infrequently in the night. In my 
solitary rides I became familiar with almost every sound habitu- 
ally heard in the darkness, one of which came uniformly from 
certain marshy water courses, and the borders of reedy ponds 
near which I passed. At such times my ears were the princi- 
pal organs of sense, and I noticed amongst the many sounds, 
one that seemed to formulate the syllable greck, repeated four 
to five times in succession, with the heaviest emphasis on the 
first utterance, which diminished with each repetition, the last 
being considerably less emphatic, yet still fairly distant. 
Its resemblance in some respects to the notes of the Vir- 
ginia Rail, suggested to me the King Rail, but I could neither 
find one myself in all my explorations nor could I learn of any 
one else finding the first individual of that species, until in the . 
summer of 1875, Mr. George W. Tinsley brought me one for 
identification. He obtained it on the first day of August, on 
the Minnesota river bottoms, some ten to twelve miles south of 
Minneapolis. It proved to be an adult male in remarkably fine 
plumage. He sought for the female and nest or young, but in 
