Cranes 



ing the migrations a flock proceeds single flle under the leadership 

 of a wary and hoarse-voiced veteran, whose orders, implicitly 

 followed by each, must first be repeated down the line that winds 

 across the sky like a great serpent. 



The Whooping, or White Crane (Grus americana), the larg- 

 est bird we have, measuring as it does over four feet in length, 

 rarely comes east of the Mississippi, although its migrations extend 

 from South America to the Arctic Circle. Apparently the habits 

 of the two cranes are almost identical, and it is even claimed by 

 some that one alleged third species, the little brown crane, is sim- 

 ply an immature whooper, in which case every feather it owns 

 must be shed before it appears in the glistening white plumage of 

 its parents. Both the whooping and sandhill cranes build nests 

 of roots, rushes, and weed-stalks in some marshy place, and the 

 two eggs of each, which are four inches long, are olive gray, in- 

 distinctly spotted and blotched with cinnamon brown. 



ii6 



