NOTES ON CRESTED CRANES AT KERICHO 189 
greedily devoured almost any food it is given — maize, wimbi, 
boiled rice, and mashed potatoes. It developed a great taste 
for milk at the beginning, but condescends to drink water 
now. On being taken out along the road it pecked vigorously 
at the ordinary grass seed stalks. It detaches the seeds from 
the stalk by closing its beak on the stem below the feathery 
part and with a rapid jerk to one side passes the stalk between 
the closed upper and lower part of the beak, thus scraping off 
the seeds into its mouth. The Kavirondo (Jaluo) have a very 
suitable onomatopoeic name for this bird, which they call 
the owang, an almost exact reproduction of its rather melan- 
choly cry. This young bird was, I should say, about three 
months old when caught. It has not yet uttered the 4 owang ’ 
sound, but when agitated makes a quacking noise somewhat 
like a duck and when it is being fed it purrs. The parent 
birds on their way to and from the feeding ground pass almost 
directly over the place where the young bird is kept, and it 
always becomes greatly excited on these occasions. One day 
the young bird seemed very unhappy, and an inspection showed 
that its mouth was full of the heads and nippers of the large 
brown ant which is very plentiful here. It had evidently 
been eating these insects, which had fastened themselves on 
to the soft flesh within the beak. The bodies of the ants had 
been swallowed, while the fore-parts remained sticking in the 
flesh. 
Some weeks after the capture of the young one the female 
adult bird was snared and brought to me. This took place about 
8 a.m., and by 2 p.m. the next day the remaining male bird 
appeared in the station with another mate. Up to this I had 
only seen these two birds in the whole district. This rather 
curious performance bears out Mr. Congreve’s similar ex- 
perience mentioned in No. 6 of the Jouenal. Do these birds 
keep a reserve supply of mates and only produce one in public 
at a time, or do they go elsewhere and find a completely new 
one if anything happens to the first ? 
The adult and immature bird are so totally dissimilar 
that the following description may be of interest : 
Adult Female . — Velvety black tuft on forehead. Beak 
black, crest straw colour with black tips 4 inches long on top. 
