Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
114 
up ; others are almost level with the water, in which they are 
always built. The nest is always placed among sedges or 
rushes, sufficiently short for the bird, when standing up, to be 
able to see around, and is never built in tall reeds. It is very 
easy to find, as the old birds never fly direct to the nest, but 
alight some twenty or thirty yards away, and, walking up to it, 
form regular tracks like a cattle-path, so, by following one of 
these tracks, one may be sure of finding the nest ; nor do the 
old birds fly straight away from it, but walk off quietly to the 
end of one of these paths and then take wing. When ap- 
proached while sitting on the nest, the bird slips off, crouches 
down, and runs away for some yards.” 
Eggs._Two in number, very rarely three ; of a coffee-brown 
to a stony-grey as regards the ground-colour. The eggs are 
double- spotted, the underlying spots being dull purphsh-grey, 
while the overlying ones take the forai of brown or reddish 
smudges and spots, generally distributed over the egg, but 
more often collected round the thicker end. Axis, 3'55-4‘3 > 
diam., 2 ’3-2 ’5. 
THE DEMOISELLE CRANES. GENUS ANTHROPOIDES. 
Anthropoides, Vieill. Analyse, p. 50 (1816). 
Type, A. virgo (Linn.). 
Unlike the True Cranes, the Demoiselle has a feathered head, 
with a long tuft of silky plumes on the ear-coverts, and the 
plumes of the lower throat are ornamental, elongated, and lan- 
ceolate. 
Only one species of the genus, A. virgo, is known, extend- 
ing from Southern Europe to Central Asia, and thence to 
Northern China, and wintering in Northern and North-eastern 
Africa as well as in North-western India. It has been observed 
once only in Great Britain, when one of a pair was shot in the 
Orkneys in May, 1863. As, however, the species is one which 
is constantly kept in menageries, these may have been escaped 
individuals. The same must have been actually the case with 
the Crowned Crane {Baiearica pavonina), which was shot in 
Ayrshire on Sunday, September 17th, 1871. This species is 
also one which is often kept in confinement. 
