7 
The principal food of the Cranes in their winter quarters in India consists of grain, wheat, rice, etc. and in the 
plains of Ferozpore, Sirsa Hissar and other parts of the Punjab they are said to eat large quantities of the water-melons, 
with which the fields are covered after the millet has been reaped, the melons having been sown along with the grain. 
The Cranes peck holes in them, and make them look as if an umbrella point had been stuck into them several times. 
The Cranes in India begin to leave their winter quarters in the middle of the month of March in the southern districts, 
whilst they have been observed in the northern provinces as late as the 4th May. As to their homeward journey to the 
north we find it recorded by Prjevalsky that the earliest flocks arrive at Lake Koko-nor on the 17th March. Radde saw 
them reach Lake Tarei-nor on the 23rd April. Pere David mentions their passing over the Pekin plains in the same 
month, whilst Swinhoe tells us that the last flock of Cranes that wintered in Hainan was observed on the 23rd March 
at Hoitow. From these observations I gather it as very probable that all the Cranes begin to leave for the north in 
the month of March, the northern birds as w^ell as the southern ones, as otheradse they could scarcely have been seen 
by Prjevalsky at Lake Koko-nor on the 17th March. The birds that winter in the northern parts of India are probably 
replaced by birds coming from the south so that the whole of their numbers reach their breeding quarters gradually. 
In Japan the Common Crane is now a rare occasional visitor although, as Prof. Ijima of the Science College, Tokio, 
informs me, it was probably more common there on migration in former days. There is no Crane of this species from 
Japan, so far as I know, in any European Museum. The specimen in the Leiden Museum described as Grtis cinerea 
longirostris in the „ Fauna Japonica” is really referable to Grtis canadensis. 
The Common Crane is often kept in confinement, and, if properly treated, lives for years. In the Zoological 
Garden of Amsterdam, a female in beautiful pale grey dress, lived there for 36 years, and laid two eggs regularly every 
year until a year before her death, so that it is probable that she did not even then die of old age but of some accidental 
disease. These domesticated birds get extremely tame, have strong likes and dislikes, and know well how to give proof 
of their animosity by furious pecks with their powerful bills. 
Perhaps no other Crane can erect and show off its ornamental tertiaries to such an extent as this species, whilst 
the naked skin on the head is also subject to a very considerable extension. The voice is very loud and the trachea 
convoluted to a verj' great extent. 
The trachea figured is from a specimen in the Museum of the Zoological Society at Amsterdam. 
Trachea of Gnis communis. 
