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March. During their stay they may frequently be met with in flocks on the sand-banks and 

 desert spaces by the river, or in the wide plains of halfa-grass." In North-western Africa it is 

 partly a migrant and partly a winter resident. Mr. Taczanowski states that numbers winter in 

 Algeria, and in the El Outaja valley he saw numbers which passed every evening northwards, 

 and in the mornings southwards ; it is met with in pairs in the desert. Canon Tristram records 

 it as " on passage in spring and autumn, sometimes halting for a time in the salt marshes." 

 Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake includes it in his list of the birds of Tangier and Eastern Morocco. Lord 

 Lilford informs me that he met with it commonly near Tunis in November ; and Mr. Osbert 

 Salvin writes that it " is found in Tunis in great numbers during the winter months, frequenting 

 the large plains. On one occasion, between Tunis and Oudeno, I counted 108 of these birds on 

 the wing at once. They are said to be migratory ; and probably they seek their breeding-haunts 

 in the continent of Europe." 



To the eastward the Crane has an extensive range. Pallas gives its eastern range as " all 

 Siberia to the Lena, Kolyma and Anadyr rivers, and during migration observed even in Nishne 

 Kamtschatks and Olutora, in Kamschatka, though rare so far north." Von Schrenck did not 

 obtain a specimen on the Amoor, but observed it during migration. In the spring of 1855 

 Mr. Maximowicz observed the first Cranes at the Mariinskischen Post on the 7 th (19th) of April. 

 Dr. Eadde brought home four specimens from Siberia, all of which agreed with the common 

 European Crane in measurements and plumage. He writes that the first were observed by him 

 at Tarei-nor on the 23rd of April, where they were not numerous. On the 24th of August, 

 1859, he observed them passing over the Kamardaban mountains, on their journey southward ; 

 on the 16th he saw them near Kultuk, on the wing, practising their flight; on the 26th of 

 August, 1856, they had left the Tarei lake, and on the 30th he saw a large flock passing south- 

 ward. He observed a flock flying in a south-westerly direction on the 25th in the Bureja 

 mountains ; but on the 2nd of September others passed in a direct southern direction. It occurs 

 in Japan, whence it is recorded in the ' Pauna Japonica ' under the name of Grus cinerea 

 longirostris ; and Mr. Swinhoe, who met with it in China, records it as occurring " every winter 

 at Swatow, lower down the coast than at Amoy, in flocks of a hundred or so ; they live during 

 their stay chiefly on sweet potatoes (the tubers of Batatas edulis)" He also writes that it 

 " occurs in small parties every winter on the sand flats of Swatow. In Naochow and Hainan 

 they were very abundant, and we often had opportunities of watching them. They are prized as 

 food by the natives ; and the soldiers shoot at them, which renders them wild and difficult of 

 approach. They feed largely here on the sweet potatoes. It was only on the plains and open 

 parts of the country that we saw them. They did not occur south of the mountains. The last 

 flight we noticed was on the 23rd of March, at Hoitow (W. Hainan). The magistrate at 

 Lingmun informed me that ' Cranes are born in pairs and mate for life. If one is born singly 

 he remains a bachelor all his days, and becomes a sentinel to the flock. This is a hard duty to 

 perform ; for if the sentinel gives a false alarm he is beaten, and if he does not give the alarm 

 soon enough he is also beaten.' The Chinese ' Gazetteer ' remarks on the abundance of Cranes 

 in Hainan, and their scarcity in other parts of the Canton province." According to Jerdon it 

 " visits India in numerous flocks during the cold weather. In the Deccan and Central India it is 

 generally seen in small flocks of from six or eight to twenty, now and then in much larger 



