WHOOPING CRANE. 203 



The Whooping Crane reaches the Western Country about the mid- 

 dle of October, or the beginning of November, in flocks of twenty or 

 thirty individuals, sometimes of twice or thrice that number, the young 

 by themselves, but closely followed by their parents. They spread from 

 Illinois over Kentucky, and all the intermediate States, until they reach 

 the Carolinas on the southern coast, the Floridas, Louisiana, and the 

 countries bordering on Mexico, in all of which they spend the winter, 

 seldom returning northward until about the middle of April, or towards 

 the beginning of May. They are seen on the edges of large ponds sup- 

 plied with rank herbage, on fields or savannahs, now in swampy woods, 

 and again on extensive marshes. The interior of the country, and the 

 neighbourhood of the sea shores, suit them equally well, so long as the 

 temperature is sufficiently high. In the Middle States, it is very seldom 

 indeed that they are seen ; and to the eastward of these countries they are 

 unknown ; for all their migrations are performed far inland, and thus 

 they leave and return to the northern retreats where, it is said, they breed 

 and spend the summer. While migrating they appear to travel both by 

 night and by day, and I have frequently heard them at the former, and 

 seen them at the latter time, as they were proceeding toward their desti- 

 nation. Whether the weather be calm or tempestuous, it makes no dif- 

 ference to them, their power of flight being such as to render them re- 

 gardless of the winds. Nay I have observed them urging their way du- 

 ring very heavy gales, shifting from high to low in the air with remark- 

 able dexterity. The members of a flock sometimes arrange themselves in 

 the form of an acute-angled triangle ; sometimes they move in a long 

 line ; again they mingle together without order, or form an extended 

 front ; but in whatever manner they advance, each bird sounds his loud 

 note in succession, and on all occasions of alarm these birds manifest the 

 same habit. While with us they are also always met with in flocks 

 But now. Reader, allow me to refer to my journals, whence I shall ex- 

 tract some circumstances relative to this majestic bird, which I hope you 

 will find not uninteresting. 



Louisville, State of Kentucky, March 1810. — I had the gratification 

 of taking Alexander Wilson to some ponds within a few miles of 

 town, and of shewing him many birds of this species, of which he had 

 not previously seen any other than stuffed specimens. I told him that 

 the white birds were the adults, and that the grey ones were the young. 

 Wilson, in his article on the Whooping Crane, has alluded to this, but. 



