THE DEMOISELLE CRANE, 33 
but you see very few of them, compared to what you see in the 
Deccan, or to what you see of the Common Crane. Being 
much rarer than this latter, I was always much more eager 
in their pursuit, and when you dosee them, they may be equally 
certainly killed either in high urhur, or froma boat, and yet I 
have not killed, in either the North-West Provinces or the 
Punjab, one Demoiselle for every ten of the Common Crane. 
Again, they seem to remain much later in parts of the Deccan 
than thay ever do in Upper India. Burgess says: “I sawalarge 
flock of this species on the Seena River near Waterphul, as late 
as the 24th May, and was told that one had been brought into 
the Cantonments of Ahmednugger as late as the 12th of June;’ 
and I have two or three other records of their having been 
obtained in other parts of the Deccan well into May. I have 
never known one killed in any part of Upper India later than 
the 20th April* ; the majority leave the Doab, by the end of 
March, and the rivers of the North-West Punjab by the 1oth 
April, and in some years earlier. 
It is a pure hypothesis I admit, but these facts have led me 
to suspect that the birds of Western India come mostly to us 
like the small Flamingo from Africa, while those of Upper 
India cross the Himalayas to us from the uplands of Central Asia. 
The latter migration I have myself twice witnessed when in the 
interior of the Himalayas; once near Petoragurh and once 
near Chini in the Satlej valley, both times early in October, 
(unfortunately I did not record dates), and Beavan noted that 
he had seen large flights passing over head at Mount Tongloo 
in 1862. There is no possibility of mistaking their harsh grat- 
ing cry, so that neither Beavan nor myself could have con- 
founded them with the Common Crane which, no doubt, migrates 
along the same line and at nearly the same season. 
In the far south I may notice they arrive much later; thus 
Mr. Theobald writes, “that about Collegal they appear towards 
the latter part of December, vzz., about harvest time, and leave 
by the end of February or early in March.” 
As a general rule the Demoiselle greatly prefers the shelving 
shores and sandbanks of the larger rivers to lakes and tanks, 
but I have seen them on many occasions about these latter, and 
Captain Butler, writing of Northern Guzerat, remarks :-— 
“The Demoiselle Crane occurs in immense flocks all over the 
plains in the cold weather, arriving about the first week in 
October. Dr. Jerdon remarks that ‘it never betakes itself 
to tanks or jhils during the day.’ This is an erroneous 
impression, as I have seen tanks fringed with a blue margin of 
distribution. This would give fully 2,000 to the whole flock. This was on a huge 
sandbank in the Jumna near Beejhulpore in the Etawah district. The entire flock 
was standing zz the water, the rearmost birds close to the edge, where it may have 
been 3 inches, and the outermost birds about 20 feet from the margin, where it was 
about 7 inches deep. There was a fair breeze blowing down stream, and all the 
birds stood, head to wind, their bodies parallel to the shore. 
* See, however, the Postscript, page 40. 
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