34 THE DEMOISELLE CRANE. 
these birds at least sixty yards wide, and extending over several 
acres of ground, over and over again.”* 
I have seen comparatively so little of this species that I can- 
not speak positively about it as I can of the Common Crane; 
but I should say that in Upper India its habits were much like 
those of the latter. They feed in fields in the early mornings, 
come down to the river or to large tanks about 9 o’clock, and 
spend a good part of the day there, though generally pay- 
ing a second visit late in the afternoon to their feeding grounds, 
and return to the water about sunset to pass the night upon 
some bare, low, sandbank, whence their harsh cries ceaselessly 
resound till they again leave about or just before dawn. I 
have not observed them so perpetually on the wing, as Mr. Vidal, 
whose remarks I quote below, tells us it is their habit to be in 
the Deccan, nor have I found them one whit more wary or difficult 
to shoot than the Common Crane. More noisy they certainly are, 
and the uproar that arises when after a successful drift you have 
fired into one of the enormous flocks, such as I have already 
described, is alike indescribable, and to any one who has had no 
personal experience of it, incredible. Thousands of mighty 
pinions, almost convulsively beating the air at the same moment, 
and, thousands of powerful windpipes all simultaneously grating 
out the harsh kurr-kurr-kurr, &c., some shriller, some baser, each 
single voice amongst the multitude capable of making itself 
heard for two miles. Scream as you will, it will be a couple of 
minutes before you can make a man close beside you hear a 
syllable you say. 
They run well, but not nearly so swiftly as the Common Crane ; 
and though when dropping in the water they will try to swim, 
the few I have seen attempt it made but little way, and were 
captured at once. 
On the ground they will fight fiercely, but they have nothing 
like the power of the Common Crane, and the boatmen would 
close with them and seize their bills in a way they never could 
with the other bird, and return in triumph to the boat, holding 
them by these, but carefully at arms’ length, as they can givea 
very nasty cut with their claws. 
I have never happened to have the chance of hawking this 
species, but I know that it is often successfully done, though 
even the Demoiselle is frequently too much for the best Falcons. 
Jerdon says that this species never makes use of its beak in 
self-defence, but is very apt to injure the Falcon with its 
sharp inner claw, and that a well-trained Peregrine, there- 
fore, always strikes this Crane on the back and not on the 
head. - He adds, that the mate of a stricken quarry often turns 
and ‘comes to its companion’s rescue. I can well believe this, 
for when winged birds are being pursued on ‘the sands, others 
* This passage is wrongly quoted by Dresser in the ‘‘ Birds of Europe” as mine. It 
is Captain E. A. Butler’s. 
