THE SANDHILL CRANE ON THE KISSIMMEE PRAIRIES 



IN 1632, when Morton wrote of New England birds, ' 'of Cranes 

 there are a great store — they sometimes eate our corne and doe 

 pay for their presumption weU enough — a goodly bird in a dishe 

 and no discommodity," he referred to the species in this group. At that 

 time it was doubtless common throughout North America; now it nests 

 in Florida only of the Atlantic Coast States, and, in the interior, only in 

 the upper Mississippi Valley and in the Canadian border states west- 

 ward to Oregon and northward into Canada. 



In Florida, the Sandhill Crane is still to be found on the great Kissim- 

 mee Prairies and their adjoining low, pine-grown lands, where the studies 

 for the present group were made. Here, in March, it commonly builds 

 its little island nest in the water-filled depressions thickly gro\\ai with a 

 species of pickerel weed locally known as "bull-tongue." 



Nest-building is preceded by the singular antics of courtship, when 

 both males and females hop, skip and jump about one another, bowing 

 low and leaping high, all the time croaking and calhng. Their matri- 

 monial affairs settled, one hears only the loud but sonorous trumpeting 

 of the male which, when heard near by, is harsh and rasping, but, when 

 softened by distance, becomes one of the most attractive sounds of a 

 Florida dawn. 



Although superficially resembling Herons, Cranes are more nearly 

 related to the Rails. Young Cranes, hke young Rails, are born thickly 

 covered with down, and thej^ run shortly after leaving the egg. The 

 young Heron, on the contrary, is hatched scantily covered with hair-like 

 feathers and spends over a month in the nest. Cranes further differ 

 from Herons by flying with the neck fully extended (see the birds in the 

 painting) , while Herons fly with a fold in the neck which brings the head 

 nearly back to the shoulders. 



Cranes are less aquatic than Herons. One may see them walking 

 about the pine woods or over the prairies, dignified, stately figures, 

 hunting for seeds, roots, grasshoppers, snails or lizards, while near the 

 water, frogs are captured. 



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