THE



221



Avicultural Magazine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE



AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



Third Series.— V ol. IV.—No 8. —All rights reserved. JUNE, 1913-


WHITE - NECKED CRANES.


Anthropoides leucauchen.


By E. E. Blaauw, C.M.Z.S.


Author of “A Monograph of the Cranes."


The Crane family is a family of very ornamental birds, being

also hardy and easily kept in confinement. They have one draw¬

back, however, and that is that they are very destructive to green

turf and gardens in general, for they are constantly looking for

worms, and if the soil is at all soft the grass is soon nowhere ! A

marsh is perhaps the best place to keep them in, but not every¬

body has a marsh at his disposal.


The White-necked Crane—of which a group is shown in the

illustration—is one of the most striking looking, if perhaps not the

most beautiful of all the Cranes. This bird was formerly very

difficult to get and very expensive, and the pair which I have kept

for many years originally cost me as much as a hundred pounds ! !

During the last four or five years they have been imported in

numbers, and the price has gone down accordingly. I think that it

is always a pity when lovely birds are imported in large numbers, as

a good many people lose their interest in them, although they are

just as beautiful as when they were rare.


The White-necked Crane is easy to breed : in fact, it is the

only Crane which can be bred everywhere and anywhere, forming

in this respect a great contrast to the white Indian Crane a near

relative, which, as far as I know has never been successfully bred in

confinement, clear eggs being so far the only thing obtained. You



