ORDER GRALLiE. 475 



to shoot off, which rendered it necessary to have them clipped 

 from time to time. During the winter of 177^ it chose the 

 shelter of a chamber with a fire in it, to pass the night ; but 

 it resisted wonderfully well the rigours of a climate so very 

 different from its own. From experiments made at Versailles 

 on several of the following species whose habitat is the same as 

 that of the crowned heron, there appears no reason to doubt 

 that these fine birds might be easily accustomed to our 

 European climates, and brought up in a state of domes- 

 tication. 



The Demoiselle Heron, Ardea Virgo, Grus Virgo, Demoi- 

 selle de Numidie, Sec, owes its name to its elegant gait, the 

 ornamental plumes of its head, and certain mimic gestures 

 which it makes, — inclining its head, walking with a kind of 

 ostentatious air, and leaping and bounding as if it were about 

 to dance. All these peculiarities of the demoiselle of Nu- 

 midia are mentioned by many ancient writers ; and Xenophon 

 in Athenagus speaks of a stratagem by which these birds 

 might be caught, which consisted in rubbing one''s self with 

 water in their presence, and then filling the vessel with glue 

 before going away. Notwithstanding this, the acquaintance 

 of the moderns with this species is comparatively of but 

 recent date. They at first confounded it with the Scops and 

 Otus of the Greeks, Asio of the Latins, in consequence of 

 the gestures which that owl makes with its head, and by mis- 

 taking its ears for the tuft of slender threads which covers 

 those of the demoiselle. M. de Savigny, in his observations 

 on the system of the birds of Egypt and Syria, demonstrates, 

 with much acumen, that the bird in question here is the 

 CreoG of the Greeks; and he also mentions that it is the 

 Bihio, or Grus Balearica, and Grus Minor, of the Latins, 

 though ornithologists place these denominations in the syno- 

 nimy of the preceding species. 



These birds are found in various parts of Africa and Asia, 



