THE SNOW-WREATH OR SIBERIAN CRANE, 15 
Of the young birds, however, when they first arrive, the males 
do not exceed about Ioibs. in weight, and the females olbs., 
though generally very fat and well cared for by the parents. 
When we first see them, they cannot, I estimate, be more 
than six months’ old. The testes and ovaria of adults, examin- 
ed on the 20th of March, were still, if I may use the term, quite 
dormant ; and allowing for the “passage home,” the pairing 
season, and incubation, they can scarcely hatch off before the 
middle of May. 
They never appear to have more than one young one with 
them; but it does not at all follow that they do not lay more 
than one egg. The Sarus, which usually lays two, and sometimes, 
though rarely, three eggs, and which has no long or arduous 
journey to perform, constantly fails to rear more than one 
young one. 
The watchful care and tender solicitude evinced by the old 
birds for their only child is most noticeable. They never 
suffer the young one to stray from their side; and, while 
they themselves are rarely more than thirty yards apart, 
and generally much closer, the young, I think, is invari- 
ably somewhere between them. If either bird find a par- 
ticularly promising rush tuft, it will call the little one to its 
side, by a faint creaking cry, and watch it eating, every now 
and then affectionately running its long bill through the young 
one’s feathers. If, as sometimes happens, the young only be 
shot, the old birds, though rising in the air with many cries, 
will not leave the place, but for hours after keep circling round 
and round high out of gun or even rifle shot, and for many days 
afterwards will return apparently disconsolately seeking their 
lost treasure. 
Like the Sarus, these birds pair, I think, for life ; at any rate 
a pair, whose young one was shot last year, and both of whom 
were subsequently wounded about the legs, so as to make 
them very recognizable, appeared again this year, accompa- 
nied by a young one, and were at once noticed as being our wary 
friends of the past year, by both the native fowlers and myself. 
I was glad to see they were none the worse for their swollen, 
crooked, bandy legs, and this year at least they have got safe 
home, I hope, with their precious charge. 
Throughout their sojourn here, the young remain as closely 
attached to their parents as when they first arrived, but doubt- 
less by the time the party return to their northern homes, 
the young are dismissed, with a blessing, to shift for them- 
selves. 
Long before they leave, the rich buff or sandy colour has 
begun to give place to the white of the adult plumage, and the 
faces and foreheads, which (as in the Common Crane) are 
feathered in the young, have begun to grow bare. This, I 
notice, seems to result from the barbs composing the vanes of 
