348 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Septembeb, 
LONG-LEGGED BIRDS. —THE WHOOPING CRANE —YOUNG AND OLD. 
You do not have any difficulty in telling a bird from any 
other animal; though birds among themselves show won¬ 
derful differences, yet you are never in doubt whether a 
particular specimen is a bird or not. Yet how great the 
difference between a humming-bird, not larger than 
some insects, and with a flight so rapid that you can 
hardly see its wings, and a domestic goose, which rare¬ 
ly flies, is awkward in all its movements, and large 
enough for a dinner for a whole family. Some birds feed 
only on other birds, or small quadrupeds, and such other 
animals as they can catch; others live on insects; still 
others find their food in various seeds and fruits; then 
when we come to the sea-shore, or the great lakes, we find 
birds that live upon fish, which they catch in'deep water, 
or along shore, where the water is shallow. If birds all 
lived upon one thing, they would soon find a scarcity of 
food, and it is very interesting to observe that each class 
of birds is so formed that it can best get its living in one 
particular way. A look at a hawk, with its fierce bill and 
powerful claws, shows that it is intended to prey upon 
living creatures ; if a duck, with its hroad, blunt bill, and 
clumsy web-feet, should try to carry off a young rabbit, 
what poor work it would make of it! It would'getalong 
no better than would a hawk if obliged to swim and dive 
to the bottom of the river for its dinner. Wherever we 
look, whether at birds, at quadrupeds, or other animals, 
or even at plants, we find that each and all are especially 
adapted to live in a certain manner, and in particular 
places, and it is not possible for any thinking person, 
even a child, to fail to see that all this has not happened 
by chance. Men do not build locomotive engines to run 
upon the water, or construct steam-boats to travel on the 
land, and it is very plain that the Creator designed these 
different forms of birds and other creatures for a particu¬ 
lar purpose. If a naturalist is studying birds (and it is so 
with other departments), he finds those which get their 
living in a particular manner, are constructed, or built, 
so to speak, on a similar plan, and he groups the birds 
according to this plan as shown in their structure. You 
would not class the duck and the hen-, or the pigeon and 
the hawk together, and while you, perhaps, could hottell 
at once all their differences, you know that they a re fitted 
in their feet, their bills, and all their parts, each for a 
particular mode of life. . Everybody, even young people, 
are naturalists to some extent. Those who make a spe¬ 
cial study of birds, are called ornithologists ,.as they study 
ornithology—a pretty long word, but perhaps it will not 
seem hard or difficult to remember if you know that it 
means “ bird-discourse,” #r as we may say “ bird-talk ” ; 
the name, when it was found necessary to have one, was 
make from the Greek ornis, a bird, and logos, a discourse, 
and means the science of birds. Ornithologists differ as 
t.o the manner in which they group or classify birds, but 
they nearly all agree in having a group or order of Waders. 
These .are birds with very long bill, neck, and legs, and a 
very short tail; the leg i's also bare of feathers for some 
distance above’ the lower joint, and 'they mostly live in 
marshes, or on the shores near the water. These are 
further divided into several sub-orders, on account of 
minor differences, but they all agree in the leading points 
here named. The Waders include birds of various 
sizes, from the little plovers and sand-pipers, up to the 
bitterns, the herons, and the cranes. To show‘the gen¬ 
eral appearance of the Waders, and at the same time giye 
the portrait of a rather rare bird, here is a picture of what 
is called the Whooping Crane, which is found in the 
States of the Valley of the Mississippi, in the Gulf States, 
and occasionally in the Middle States. It is one of the 
grandest of our native birds, it being between four and 
five feet long. Its plumage is entirely white, except some 
black on the wings, its legs are black, the head carmine. 
The two birds shown in the engraving, are not different 
cranes, but an old and a young one. The young does not 
appear in a white dress the first season, but goes about 
in modest gray and brown, and it has been mistaken for 
a different bird. The flight of this crane is very high 
and rapid, and as they pass far over head, their coarse 
note, which gives them the name of Whooping Crane, 
may be heard for a great distance. It is stated that when 
mating, the male birds have severe fights, arid that their 
cries at this time have been heard for three miles. They 
feed upon small fishes, frogs and other reptiles, and up¬ 
on the roots of various plants that grow in muddy places. 
As they pass from North to South, they are said to stop 
on the sweet-potato fields, to search for any potatoes 
that may be left in digging. Travellers on the far western 
prairies, where the air is so peculiar that all distant things 
are strangely magnified, tell numerous stones of being 
deceived by this bird. One teamster followed one of these 
cranes for several miles, thinking that it was a mule that 
had strayed from the camp ; and an old hunter has been 
known to crawl a long distance on his belly to get a shot 
at what he took for an antelope, and he only found out 
his mistake when his antelope took wing and flew off as 
a Whooping Crane. They are exceedingly quick to catch 
the least sound, and if once alarmed, they keep on the 
alert. It is said that these birds were formerly found in 
New Jersey and other Eastern States, but they have been 
killed off or frightened away from all the thickly settled 
parts of the country. That any one should wish to kill 
such a noble bird, that is not useful for food, and does no 
harm to any one, seems not only thoughtless, but wicked. 
We do not envy the feelings of one who, for the sake of 
shooting something, can stop the flight of this beautiful 
white Crane, and see it drop a lifeless mass of useless 
flesh and blood-stained feathers. Audubon states that 
they become very tame in captivity, and he gives an ac¬ 
count of the odd and suspicious ways of one that he had. 
