14 



I.-BALEARICA. 



In the crowned cranes [Balearica of Brisson) the bill is much shorter 

 than in the others, and the nostrils are ovate instead of being elongated. 

 The feathers composing their clothing plumage [i.e. those of the neck 

 "^nd body) are long and hackle-shaped, being often raised or ruffled, which 

 produces an exceedingly fine transient efiTect. The occiput is adorned 

 ■'''with a large and highly remarkable crest or " crown " of wire-like bristles 

 (or, more properly, nnwebbed shafts of feathers), which radiate from an 

 elongated centre, each one being about three inches and a half long, flat, 

 and twisted through its entire length, one side of it being white and the 

 ^other pale brown, so as to appear ringed with these colours, and having 

 -tjie extreme tip black. The frontal and coronal feathers anterior to thfe 

 crest are smooth, prominent, and velvety black. The skin before the eyes 

 js nude and black, being continuous with a great naked cheek-patch, 

 which is white, with more or less of red (and the latter differently disposed), 

 according to the species, and again with a naked throat-wattle, which is 

 in like manner more or less developed. The wings are white, with black 

 primaries and secondaries, and dark brownish-red tertiaries, the last rather 

 broad, and above them are some elongated and discomposed pale golden 

 fulvous plumes, which fade much in hue before they are shed at the annual 

 moult. When the wings are spread, as when " dancing," their inner 

 surface is seen to be white with contrasting black flight-feathers. The 

 irides are conspicuously light blue ; bill and legs black. The young are 

 dusky, with brown margins to the feathers of their dorsal plumage ; the 

 head being clad with downy plumelets, which are very short upon the 

 cheeks, and the occipital tuft being well developed (at least when the 

 bird is about one-fourth grown), and consisting of erect downy feathers 

 about IJin. long, which, together with the medial line of the crown, are 

 of a pale brown colour ; the upper portion of the neck also is light brown 

 (at least in B. regulorum), and the wings are white, margined with pale 

 fulvous. 



In this well-marked genus of cranes the trachea is of the usual form, 

 , proceeding straight to the divarication of the bronchi ; and its long 

 I tendinous pair of lateral muscles are remarkable for being attached at 



