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never seem to attain to the full weight of these latter. From these facts I am disposed to infer 

 that these parties, which include individuals of both sexes, consist of birds of the second year, 

 that our birds do not either breed or assume their perfect plumage till just at the close of their 

 second year, and that, like Pigeons and many others, they do not attain their full weight until 

 they have bred once at least. 



" Unlike the four other species of Crane with which I am acquainted, and which I have 

 above mentioned, Grus leucogeranus never seems to resort, during any part of the day or night, 

 to dry plains or fields in which to feed ; and, unlike them too, as far as my experience goes, it is 

 exclusively a vegetable-eater. I have never found the slightest trace of insects or reptiles (so 

 common in those of the other species) in any of the twenty-odd stomachs of these White Cranes 

 that I have myself examined. 



" Day and night they are to be seen, if undisturbed, standing in the shallow water. Asleep, 

 they rest on one leg with the head and neck somehow nestled into the back ; or they will stand 

 like marble statues, contemplating the water with curved necks, not a little resembling some 

 white Egret on a gigantic scale ; or, again, we see them marching to and fro, slowly and grace- 

 fully feeding amongst the low rushes. 



" Other Cranes, and notably the common one and the Demoiselle, daily pay visits in large 

 numbers to our fields, where they commit great havock, devouring grain of all descriptions, 

 flower-shoots, and even some kinds of vegetables. The White Crane, however, seeks no such 

 dainties, but finds its frugal food, rush-seeds, bulbs, corms, and even leaves of various aquatic 

 plants, in the cool waters where it spends its whole time. 



" Without preparations by me for comparison, I hardly like to be too positive on this score ; 

 but I am impressed with the idea that the stomach in this species is much less muscular than in 

 any of the others with which I am acquainted. The enormous number of small pebbles that 

 their stomachs contain is remarkable. Out of an old male I took sufficient very nearly to fill an 

 ordinary-sized wineglass, and that, too, after they had been thoroughly cleaned and freed from 

 the macerated vegetable matter which clung to them. These pebbles were mostly quartz (amor- 

 phous and crystalline), greenstone, and some kind of porphyritic rock; the largest scarcely 

 exceeded in size an ordinary pea, while the majority were not bigger than large pins'-heads. 

 Perhaps, in the hands of some abler mineralogist than myself, these tiny fragments (of which I 

 have a small bagfull) may prove to contain as yet unnoticed mineral forms from Central Asia. 



" I have found similar pebbles in the stomachs of the Grey and Demoiselle Cranes, but 

 never in anything like such numbers as in those of the present species. 



" When not alarmed, the White Crane's note is what, for so large a bird, may be called a 

 mere chirrup ; and even when most alarmed, and circling and soaring wildly round and round, 

 looking down upon the capture of wounded offspring or partner, their cry (a mere repetition of 

 the syllables 'Karekhur') is very feeble as compared with that of any other of the Cranes 

 (including even JBalearica pavonina) whose notes I have myself ever heard. 



" An examination of the trachea of a fine male that I dissected on the 22nd of February 

 this year (1867), at once explained this feebleness. Instead of a convolution entering and 

 running far back into the sternum, there is merely a somewhat dilated bend just where the 

 windpipe enters the cavity of the body ; and it is only after the pipe has divided (which it does 



