16 THE SNOW-WREATH OR SIBERIAN CRANE. 
the tiny feathers falling off, and leaving only the naked hair- 
like shafts. Even when they leave us, however, there is still 
a good deal of buff about the head, upper back, lesser and 
median wing-coverts, longer scapulars, and tertials of the 
young, while the dingy patch along the front of the tarsus is 
still well marked. 
Each year several small parties of birds are noticeable, un- 
accompanied by any young ones, and never separating into 
pairs. These, when-they first come, still show a few buff 
feathers, and have a dingy patch on the tarsus ; and, though 
before they leave us, they become almost as purely white, and 
have almost as well-coloured faces and legs as the old ones that 
are in pairs, they 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 Iam 
acquainted, the Snow-Wreath 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 exclu- 
sively a vegetable eater. I have never found the slightest traces 
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 gracefully feeding amongst the low rushes. 
Other Cranes, and notably the common one and the Demoi- 
selle, daily pay visits in large numbers to our fields, where they 
commit great havoc, 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 IJ 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 remark- 
able. Out of an old male I took very nearly sufficient to fill an 
ordinary-sized wine-glass, and that, too, after they had been 
