436 WHOOPING CRANE. 



sive salt marshes, desolate swamps, and open morasses in 

 the neighbourhood of the sea. Its migrations are regular, and 

 of the most extensive kind, reaching from the shores and in- 

 undated tracts of South America to the arctic circle. In these 

 immense periodical journeys, they pass at such a prodigious 

 height in the air as to be seldom observed. They have, how- 

 ever, their resting stages on the route to and from their usual 

 breeding places, the regions of the north. A few sometimes 

 make their appearance in the marshes of Cape May in De- 

 cember, particularly on and near Egg Island, where they are 



It appears to extend over Asia to China, and specimens have been 

 brought from Japan. Are they all one species 1 



America will also possess another majestic crane, Grus Canadensis, 

 Temni., inhabiting the northern parts, but not commonly found in the 

 middle States ; it is met with in summer in all parts of the Fur Countries 

 to the shores of the Arctic Sea. 



The birds of this genus -were formerly arranged among the herons, to 

 which they bear a certain alliance, but were, by Pallas, with propriety 

 separated, and form a very natural division in a great class. They are at 

 once distinguished from Ardea by the bald head, and the broad, waving 

 and pendulous form of the greater coverts. Some extend over every 

 part of the world, but the group is, notwithstanding, limited to only a 

 few species. They are majestic in appearance, and possess a strong and 

 powerful flight, performing very long migrations, preparatory to which 

 they assemble, and, as it were, exercise themselves before starting. 

 They are social, and feed and migrate in troops. Major Long, speaking 

 of the migrations of the second American species, G. Canadensis, says, 

 " They afford one of the most beautiful instances of animal motion we 

 can anywhere meet with. They fly at a great height, and wheeling in 

 circles, appear to rest without effort on the surface of an aerial current, 

 by whose eddies they are borne about in an endless series of revolutions ; 

 each individual describes a large circle in the air, independently of his 

 associates, and uttering loud, distinct, and repeated cries. They con- 

 tinue thus to wing their flight upwards, gradually receding from the 

 earth, until they become mere specks upon the sight, and finally alto- 

 gether disappear, leaving only the discordant music of their concert to 

 fall faintly on the ear, exploring 



' Heavens not its own, and worlds unknown before.'" 



The Grus Canadensis, or sandhill crane, will be figured and described 

 by the Prince of Musignano in the remaining volumes of his " Continua- 

 tion," which we hope ere long to receive. — Ed. 



