86 
WHOOPING CRANE. 
legs being red; like those of the present, the year old birds are 
said also to be tawny. 
It is highly probable that the species described by naturalists 
as the Brown Crane {Jirdea Canadensis), is nothing more than 
the young of the Whooping Crane,'* their descriptions exactly 
corresponding with the latter. In a flock of six or eight, three 
or four are usually of that tawny or reddish brown tint on the 
back, scapulars and wing coverts, but are evidently yearlings 
of the Whooping Crane, and differ in nothing but in that and size 
from the others. They are generally five or six inches shorter, 
and the primaries are of a brownish cast. 
The Whooping Crane is four feet six inches in length, from 
the point of the bill to the end of the tail, and when standing 
erect measures nearly five feet; the bill is six inches long, and 
an inch and a half in thickness, straight, extremely sharp, and 
of a yellowish brown colour; the irides are yellow; the forehead, 
whole crown and cheeks are covered with a warty skin thinly 
interspersed with black hairs; these become more thickly set 
towards the base of the bill; the hind head is of an ash colour; 
the rest of the plumage pure white, the primaries excepted, 
which are black; from the root of each wing rise numerous large 
flowing feathers projecting over the tail and tips of the wings; 
the uppermost of these are broad, drooping, and pointed at the 
extremities, some of them are also loosely webbed, their silky 
fibres curling inwards like those of the ostrich. They seem to 
occupy the place of the tertials. The legs and naked part of the 
thighs are black, very thick and strong; the hind toe seems rare- 
ly or never to reach the hard ground, though it may probably 
assist in preventing the bird from sinking too deep in the mire. 
* This ij an error into which our author was led in censequenee of never hav- 
ing sefen a specimen of the bird in question {Ardea Canadensis, Linn. — Grtis 
Freli Hudsonis, Briss.) Peale’s museum at present contains a fine specimen, 
which was brought by the naturalists attached to Major Long’s exploring party, 
who ascended the Missouri in the year 1820. Bartram calls this Crane the Grus 
pralensis. It is known to travellers by the name of Sandhill Crane. 
