THE DEMOISELLE CRANE. a7 
the day they either rest on a sandbank in one of the larger 
rivers or on the bank of a large tank. They are then very 
difficult to approach from the shore, though oddly enough they 
will allow a sailing vessel to pass quite nearthem. They arrive 
about the beginning of November and leave in March. 
“T never saw ‘Kalam’ either in Tumkur (Mysore) or in the 
Panch Mahals.” oie 
In Upper India, the native fowlers capture and bring in 
many, catching them sometimes in nets* as they do Geese and 
other Water Fowl, and sometimes with snares, as in the case of 
Bustard. I have never seen the birds caught, but have often 
seen them carried about for sale. The fowlers sew the 
eyelids together very lightly, and they will then allow themselves 
to be carried about unresistingly, motionless, and as if mes- 
merized. If fed and kept for some days in a dark place after 
their eyelids have been unclosed, they soon become tame, and if 
their wings are clipped, may be safely let loose. They will wander 
about the garden, and sometimes associate with the poultry, 
{always if there be Geese amongst these), and come back at 
night to their cells as though they had been tame-bred fowl. 
They seem very gentle, graceful beings, but like their namesakes, 
are not always reliable, are very spiteful at times, especially 
where any, that they consider rivals in your affections, children 
or dogs, are concerned, and can scratch terribly when out 
of temper. 
Generally they seem to pine away during the hot weather, 
but the Maharajah of Jeypore and other native princes have, 
I know, succeeded in keeping them for many years. They 
are, however, mostly kept by natives as quarries on which to 
train Falcons. , 
No sort of sanctity attaches to these or the Common Crane 
in Northern India, but in the south it would seem to be different. 
* Mr. W.N. Chill writes from near Delhi :— 
**The Demoiselle Crane is caught in the very same way as are the Bustard 
and the large White and Common Crane, z7z,, in slip nooses made out of the ten- 
dons obtained from the tarsi of large birds. These nooses, a caste of people known 
here as Bawaryas, who catch both birds and animals, use most dexterously. On dis- 
covering their game they choosea favourable spot, lay their nooses, which are attached 
to little pegs which they drive into the ground, and then veer round towards the 
birds outflanking them with the assistance of a buffalo, the best animal used for 
this purpose. They approach closer and closer, then suddenly when coming very near 
to the game, they hasten the pace of the buffalo, thus consequently forcing the birds 
to walk faster. In their confusion some generally entangle their feet in the nooses and 
are thus captured :— 
**The Demoiselle Crane (but not any of the other larger birds above enumerated) 
is also netted by a caste called Xalbuts, real fowlers. These men, on observing 
localities frequented by these birds, go and lay their nets there, taking great care 
to cover them over with grass to prevent suspicion, and after scattering grain about 
the ground that the nets will cover when sprung, go off and hide in some adjacent 
spot, taking with them of course the strings of the nets. When the birds arrive as 
usual, and finding, as they soon do, the grain, commence devouring it greedily, the 
strings are pulled, the nets rise suddenly, and some of the birds get enclosed within 
them, though many always escape,” 
