36 
■ Grus ORNATA, Brelim, Vogelf. p. 291 (1855). 
Grus (Anthropoides) VIRGO, David & Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 436 (1877). 
Vernacular names. The Demoiselle Crane (English); de Jufferkraan (Dutch); la Demoiselle de Numidie (French); 
der Jungfernkranich (German); Karchira-Togorii (= the screaming Crane of the Burjates on the Upper Irkut); Anehazuzu 
(Japanese); Raho-Karkarra (of the Arabs); Karronch (in India), Karkarra (in India, by the Shikarees); Damigella (Maltese). 
Wrongly called Coollen by some Indian writers, as this name applies to Grus cinerea. 
Adult. General colour bluish pearly grey. Bastard wing, primaries, primary coverts and quills blackish washed with 
grey. Secondaries partly slate colour, blackish towards the ends, the innermost enormously elongated, grey with dark 
tips, falcated and pendant. Tail dark grey. Crown of head grey like the rest of the body. Remainder of the head including 
the nape and about ij inches down the neck and the whole of the throat and foreneck slaty black. The feathers of the 
latter part are elongated and pendant. A white streak of feathers extends to above the ear coverts, and developes into 
a tuft of white, elongated, silky plumes of about 3 inches in length. Bill greyish olive colour with reddish tip. Iris generally 
crimson, but varying very much in colour. Legs greyish horn-colour. Total length about 33 inches but varying very much 
in different individuals, independently of sex, the males, however, being usually the larger birds. Measurement of a bird 
in the Leiden Museum are wing 19', tail 6 '/, tarsus 7', middle toe & claw 3', culmen 2^'. 
Immature. Similar to the adult, but general colour more dusky. Head light grey. Eartufts indicated by tufts of 
straight grey feathers pointing backwards and resembling in general aspect a small wing. Neck darkish, also inner secondaries, 
the feathers of both these parts not being very visibly lengthened. (Description of a specimen in the Leiden Museum). 
Chick. I have not succeeded in meeting with a newly hatched chick, but have found one in the Leiden Museum 
on which the feathers were beginning to appear. Head covered with yellowish white down, the rest of the body with 
brownish grey down. The grey ear tufts of the immature dress are beginning to show, also some feathers on the sides of 
the body. (This specimen is figured on plate Xd). 
Egg. Figured of the natural size plate XVIII n°. i from a specimen in the Leiden Museum. 
Hab. South-eastern Europe and throughout Central Asia to Mongolia, wintering in North and North-eastern Africa 
and North-western India. 
The Demoiselle Crane, as it is usually called, was known to the ancients^). Aristotle gave it the name of‘Actor’ 
or ‘Comedian’, Pliny called it the ‘Parasite’ and the ‘Dancer’. Pliny undoubtedly intended to refer to this species when he 
said “the preople of the Balearic Islands call the Lesser Crane ‘vipio’,” because there is no other Crane smaller than the 
Common Crane that can have visited these islands. In the same way his ‘Balearic Crane’, the tuft of which he compares 
to that of the Black Woodpecker, (Ficus martins) should probably be referred to the Demoiselle, and not to Balearica 
pavonina., there being some slight resemblance between the tuft on the head of the Woodpecker and the eartufts of 
this Crane, but none at all between the former and the large crest of the Crowned Crane. 
One of the first accounts of this species in modern days was published in 1733 in the “Memoires de I’Academie 
Royale des Sciences” of Paris'^), where the bird is figured, and even an anatomical description of it is given. In 1676 
M. N. Robert published in Paris, in his book of prints, a copper plate on which a number of these Cranes were figured 
in their various dancing attitudes taken from living birds kept in the Menagerie du Roi at Versailles. Buffon tells us that 
it had been communicated to him by order of “Monsieur le Marechal, due de Mouchy, Gouverneur de Versailles et de 
“la Menagerie du Roi,” that the said bii'ds in the King’s Menagerie had bred, and that one of the young born there 
had lived at Versailles for twentjf-four years before it died. Buffon also says that the birds at Versailles had been brought 
there from Numidie, and were six in number. He adds that very little is known about them in their native haunts. 
The Demoiselle Crane has always been famous for its graceful form and its wonderful dances and attitudes, and 
was supposed to imitate man in its actions. Albin in his ‘Natural History’ describes it as the ‘Numidian Crane’, and gives 
a figure of a bird that he had seen alive at Sir Henry Maynard’s. As his book was published in 1740 this must have 
been anterior to that date. 
The summer or breeding range of the Demoiselle Crane is very extensive. So far as we know it is the only Crane 
that breeds in three continents — Africa, Europe, and Asia. But over this enormous range the bird is only locally 
distributed as a summer resident. Loche found it breeding in the sandy plains of the south of Algeria in the years 
1) la the Journal of Helenic studies pi. 82, 1887 is a reproduction of an Attic alahastrum painted by Pasiades about 480 years B. C. on which a Demoiselle Crane 
is represented between two Bacchantes, the white ear tufts and dark pendant breastfeathers being curiously enough painted yellow. 
2) Tome III 1666—99. pt. 2 p. 323 pi. 321 (1733). 
