WHOOPING CRANE. 
41 
tensive salt marshes, desolate swamps, and open morasses in 
the neighbourhood of the sea. Its migrations are regular, and 
of the most extensive kind, reaching from the shores and in- 
undated tracts of South America to the arctic circle. In these 
immense periodical journeys, they pass at such a prodigious 
height in the air as to be seldom observed. They have, how- 
ever, their resting stages on the route to and from their usual 
breeding places, the regions of the north. A few sometimes 
make their appearance in the marshes of Cape May, in De- 
cember, particularly on and near Egg Island, where they are 
known by the name of storks. The younger birds are easily 
distinguished from the rest by the brownness of their plumage. 
It appears to extend over Asia to China, and specimens have been bi'ought from 
Japan. Are they all one species ? 
America will also possess another majestic crane, Grus Canadensis, Temm. 
inhabiting the northern parts, but not commonly found in the middle states ; it 
is met with in summer in all parts of the fur countries to the shores of the 
Arctic Sea. 
The birds of this genus were formerly arranged among the herons, to which they 
bear a certain alliance, but were, by Pallas, with propriety separated, and form 
a very natural division in a great class. They are at once distinguished from 
Ardea by the bald head, and the broad, waving, and pendulous form of the 
greater coverts. Some extend over every part of the world, but the group is, not- 
withstanding, limited to only a few species. They are majestic in appearance, and 
possess a strong and powerful flight, performing very long migrations, preparatory 
to which they assemble, and, as it were, exercise themselves before starting. 
They are social, and feed and migrate in troops. Major Long, speaking of the 
migrations of the second American species G. Canadensis, says, “ They afford one 
of the most beautiful instances of animal motion we can anywhere meet with. 
They fly at a great height, and wheeling in circles, appear to rest without effort on 
the surface of an aerial current, by whose eddies they are borne about in an endless 
series of revolutions ; each individual describes a large circle in the air, indepen- 
dently of his associates, and uttering loud, distinct, and repeated cries. They con- 
tinue thus to wing their flight upwards, gradually receding from the earth, until 
they become mere specks upon the sight, and Anally altogether disappear, leaving 
only the discordant music of their concert to fall faintly on the ear, exploring 
‘ Heavens not its own, and worlds unknown before.’ ” 
The Grus Canadensis, or sand-hill crane, will be figured and described by the 
Prince of Musignano in the remaining volumes of his continuation, which we 
hope ere long to receive. — Ed. 
