486 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



antics for hours at a time. The Whooping Crane has similar 

 habits. 



In Florida the nest usually is placed in the wet margin of a 

 shallow grassy pond or in some savanna; but in the west it is 

 sometimes built on the dry prairie. Before many weeks the 

 young became such rapid runners that they will give one quite 

 a chase to catch them, and it requires fast work to run down 

 a broken-winged adult bird. 



As an article of food no doubt the Sandhill Crane is very 

 palatable if taken young, but my only experience of its gastro- 

 nomic qualities was with an old bird, and I should have to be 

 nearer starvation than I then was to repeat the experiment. 

 This bird lives to a great age, and when old it is about as 

 tough and stringy as an old Swan. If taken young it becomes 

 very tame, and it is capable of defending itself against dogs, 

 cats, foxes and other mammals. Dr. Hatch had one which, 

 he asserts, repelled the attacks of the largest and most vicious 

 dogs. 



The bird when feeding keeps its head down for but a short 

 period, and then, raising it high, sweeps the country with its 

 wary eye. When the head is raised the hunter 'must be well 

 concealed to avoid discovery. 



Dr. Hatch writes that a young bird of this species which 

 he kept in confinement swallowed almost anything that it 

 could get hold of. All sorts of hard articles that had been 

 picked up were afterwards regurgitated with the indigestible 

 portions of the food.^ 



This species usually swallows its food whole. Fish, frogs, 

 snakes, shell-fish, field mice and other small mammals, birds 

 and even eggs make up a portion of its animal food. 



My friend Mr. William S. Perry of Worcester, flushed a 

 Sandhill Crane from its nest on the Kankakee marshes and 

 shot the bird. He found two large lumps in its gullet, and on 

 opening it he found three eggs of the Sora Rail intact. The 

 shell of the first was bright and glossy; the next was some- 

 what faded, and the shell of the third, which was nearest the 

 stomach, had lost its smooth coating and some of its mark- 



« Hatch, P. L.: Notes on the Birds of Minnesota, 1892, p. 100. 



