BRITISH BIRDS 



both ; she dropped her breast gently forwards ; and as soon as it touched, she let 

 the rest of her body sink gradually down. And so she sits with her neck up and 

 her body full in my sight, sometimes preening her feathers, especially of the neck, 

 sometimes lazily pecking about, and for a long time she sits with her neck curved 

 like a Swan's, though principally at its upper part." 



The eggs vary in colour from pale buff to olive-brown, blotched with reddish- 

 brown. 



The Crane feeds chiefly on vegetable food, grass of all kinds forming a large 

 part of its diet, as well as the green shoots of water-plants ; it also eats worms, 

 insects, and reptiles. 



Col. Irby, describing the migration of this species as witnessed in Spain, states 

 (The Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar, 2nd ed. p. 251) : "These Andalucian- 

 breeding Cranes are very largely reinforced by the autumn migration, which arrives 

 early in October ; and they then form immense bands of from two to three hundred 

 in number, though generally they keep in smaller lots of from five to thirty or forty. 

 Those which do not remain to nest, pass north in March. On the nth of that 

 month, in 1874, Mr. Stark and myself had the pleasure of seeing them on passage ; 

 and a grand and extraordinary sight it was, as flock after flock passed over at a 

 height of about two hundred yards — some in single line, some in a V- sna P e » others 

 in Y-formation, all from time to time trumpeting loudly." 



The long convoluted trachea or windpipe and hollow keel to the sternum of the 

 Crane no doubt enable the bird to utter its loud trumpet-like notes. 



The sexes are much alike in colour, but the male is said to be darker. 



An example of the Demoiselle Crane, Grits virgo, was shot in the Orkneys in 

 May 1863, and another is said to have been picked up dead in Somersetshire, but 

 these are supposed to have escaped from captivity. During summer this species 

 occurs in Southern Europe, ranging eastwards into Asia, and winters in Africa and 

 India. 



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