WHOOPING CRANE. 43 c 



tlie thighs, pale red ; feet, three-toed, the outer joined to the 

 middle by a broad and strong membrane, and each bordered 

 with a rough warty edge ; the soles of the feet are defended 

 from the hard sand and shells by a remarkably thick and 

 callous warty skin. 



On opening these birds, the smallest of the three was found 

 to be a male ; the gullet widened into a kind of crop ; the 

 stomach or gizzard contained fragments of shellfish, pieces 

 of crabs, and of the great king crab, Avith some dark brown 

 marine insects. The flesh was remarkably firm and muscular ; 

 the skull, thick and strong, intended, no doubt, as in the 

 woodpecker tribe, for the security of the brain from the vio- 

 lent concussions it might receive while the bird was engaged 

 in digging. The female and young birds have the back and 

 scapulars of a sooty brownish olive. 



This species is found as far south as Cayenne and Surinam. 

 Dampier met with it on the coast of New Holland ; the British 

 circumnavigators also saw it on Van Diemen's Land, Tierra 

 del Fuego, and New Zealand. 



WHOOPING CKANE. (Ardea Americana.) 



PLATE LXIV.— Fig. 3, Male. 



Arct. Zool. No. 339. — Catesby, i. 75. — Lath. iii. p. 42. — La Grue d'Amerique, 

 PI. enl. 889.— Peale's Museum, No. 3704. 



GBUS AMERICANA— Temminck:.* 

 Grus Americana, Bonap. Synop. p. 302. — North. Zool. ii. p. 372. 



This is the tallest and most stately species of all the feathered 

 tribes of the United States, the watchful inhabitant of exten- 



* This crane has also suffered under the too general confusion of 

 names, so that it becomes somewhat difficult to determine with pre- 

 cision that which should by priority be allotted to it. It is an extra 

 European species, and seems to be the Asiatic bird generally known 

 under the name of G. gigantea, Pall. Temminck, however, says that 

 Gmelin changed this name from the original one of 0. leucogeranos, 

 Pall., and has figured and described it as such in the Planches Color ees. 



