i8 
and forehead becoming visible between the brown feathers. Ornamental tertiaries more or less decomposed and developed 
as in the adult birds but cinnamon brown instead of white i). 
Chick. Unknown but probably not very different from the chick of Grus communis. 
Egg. Figured, of the natural size, plate XVII n“. 3 from a specimen laid in the Zoological Garden 01 Amsterdam. 
Hab. Central North Ameidca, north to the Great Slave Lake, south to the 43rd parallel, wintering in Florida 
and Central Mexico. 
The earliest author by whom I find this Crane mentioned is Hakluyt who tells us how Captains Amadas and 
Barlowe, on landing on the island of Wokokon in the mouth of July 1584, found great numbers of Cranes for the most 
part white, and describes the noise they made “as if an army of men had shouted together”. Catesby gave a plate of 
the head of this bird in 1731 and described it from a complete skin obtained from an Indian, who had made use of 
it for his tobacco-pouch. He also mentions its having been seen by a white man at the mouths of the Savannah and 
other rivers of South Carolina. Edwards described and figured this Crane in 1751 from a bird brought home from 
Hudson’s Bay by Mr. Isham, who found it there in summer. 
In the accounts of early writers there has always been much confusion between this species in its immature brown 
dress and Grus canadensis , and neither Wilson nor Audubon seem to have had the sligtest suspicion that two species of 
Crane inhabited North America. This is rather surprising in the case of two such acute observers of bird-life as these 
authors, as in reality the immature dress G. americana and the adult and immature dresses of G. ca?iadensis bear but 
very slight resemblance. G. amertcana in young plumage is of a cinnamon brown, which colour becomes more and more 
mixed with white as the bird advances towards the adult stage, but is always withoict any mixture of grey., whilst G. cana¬ 
densis in all its forms, (the large and the small), presents a bluish grey dress when adult, and nearly the same 
colour when immature, except that the grey feathers, especially those of the upper parts, show brown margins. The 
different arrangement of the naked parts of the head is also very noticeable. 
The American or Whooping Crane, as it is often named, is almost entirelj? confined to Central North America, 
breeding in the northern parts as far north as the Great Slave Lake. Here two eggs were taken by Mr. J. Lockart, 
which are now in the United States National Museum. According to Baird the regular southern limit of the breeding 
range of the bird is about the 43rd parallel, while a few nest more to the south in the prairies of Central Illinois 
and Iowa. 
It seems however that this bird also occasionally breeds in the Southern States, as Mr. Dresser in June 1863 saw 
a couple of them in a lagoon at Matamoras (Southern Texas), and afterwards a small flock of seven or eight, in the 
same district. He was informed by the natives that they bred in a lagoon some distance to the south-west of Bagdad 
(Bocca del Rio Grande). Unfortunately Mr. Dresser could not go there himself. In former days they probably bred in 
Virginia as Capt. Amadas found them there in large flocks in July both in the white and the immature dress. I also find 
it mentioned by Thompson in the Proc. of the U. S. Nat. Museum that it is frequent in Mouse-river country in August, 
September and October {Coues')., that it is a tolerably common summer resident in Winipeg [Hire), that it breeds near 
Oak Point, arriving in April and May [Small), that It is a rare summer resident near Westbourne [Nash), that it breeds 
near Shoal Lake [Thompson) that it breeds in the marshes between Moose-mountain and the Pipestone [Macotm), and 
that it is a transient, not breeding, visitant on Shell River, passing north [Calcutt). Macfarlane did not succeed in finding 
nests of this bird, but saw flocks fly past Fort Anderson (Indiana) in spring and autumn so that he was quite sure 
that it breeds in Arctic America. Trippe says that it occasionally breeds in Minesota, and is quite common there during 
migration. 
The information we have concerning the breeding of this species is still very incomplete. Nuttall informs us the 
nest is built on the ground in a tussok of long grass in some secluded solitary swamp. It is also added that the birds 
sit on the nest with “extended legs”. This must be regarded as very doiibtful, as Cranes do not usually sit on their nests 
in that way. The eggs are stated to be two in number. 
Latham also mentions the breeding of this species on the ground, the nest being formed of grass and feathers, 
and the number of eggs laid as two. 
1) Description of an immature bird in the Provincial Museum in Planover where it is wrongly identified as Grus hncogeranus, 
2) The principal navigations by Hakluyt a preacher and sometimes student of Christchurch in Oxford 1598 — 1600. Vol. Ill, p. 246, under the following, head “The 
first voyage made to the coasts of America with two barks wherein were Captaine.s M. Philip Amadas and M. Arthur Barlowe, who discovered part of the country now called 
Virginia in 1584, written by one of the said captaines and sent to Sir Walter Ralegh, knight, at whose charge and direction the said voyage was set fortli”. 
