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28^0—42- Irby states that it used to breed in former days in the marismas of the Guadalquivir, and adds that specimens 
are often obtained at Seville in March, April and the beginning of May, and again in August, so that he supposes 
that they must nest a little more to the north. In spite of all his exertions Mr. Howard Saunders did not succeed in finding 
its nesting places in Southern Spain. Going more to the east we find this Crane breeding in the Dobrudscha, where the 
lagoons offer it ample and suitable accommodation. It also breeds more to the north all round the Black Sea in the 
steppes of Southern Russia, according to Seebohm up to the 50th degree of latitude, and in the northern steppes of 
the Caucasus. Dr. Radde tells us he found it sparsely in the Caucasus near the Goktschai Lake, but numerous in the 
Mughan steppe and every-where in general where the country was flat and partook of the steppe character, even in 
places with scaixely any vegetation. It was especially abundant in the hot plains, but became rarer at an altitude of 2000 
feet. In Turkestan, according to Severtzow, it is found all over the country going as far up as 10,000 feet and thus 
extending throughout his four vertical districts, which include the salt-plains, the cultivated country, the grassy steppes, the 
larch-woods, apple and ash groves of the Karatau, and the lower Thian Shan Mountains, together with the fir and birch 
and the juniper districts. In the Pamir, Severtzow did not find this Crane. Bogdanow met with it abundantly in summer 
in the Thian Shan Mountains, also in Kuldscha and Dsungaria. Finsch found it breeding on the plateaux of the Tarbagatai 
Mountains, on lake Ala-kul and on the Ob. Bogdanow, Dybowski, Radde and David record its breeding in the Altai, along 
the Irtysch, the Irkut and the eastern tributaries of the Jenissei, round Kossogul Lake, in Transbaikalia, around the 
Tarei-Nor, on the high table lands of Mongolia and as far south as the deserts of Alashan, also in Dauria, and in the 
open valleys of the wooded eastern slopes of the Apple Mountains near the Sea of Ochotsk. 
The result of all these observations is that if we draw a line across Asia from Alexandrowski, near the mouth 
of the Amur, to Jekaterinoslaw on the Dnieper in Southern Russia, bending southwards along the western coasts of the 
Black Sea to the Dobrudscha, we pass through the stronghold of the breeding-range of this species, while its nesting in 
Southern Spain and in Algeria must be regarded as more or less exceptional. 
The Demoiselle Crane is one of the few species of the family on the habits of which we find tolerably numerous 
observations on record. Although it lives, like most of its congeners, in the vicinity of streams and lakes, it does not 
require a real swamp or even wet ground on which to make its nest. What it wants is an open steppe, which may be 
unproductive in the extreme, as observed by Radde in the Caucasus, whilst high table-lands and stretches of flat open 
country in valleys and along slopes of mountainous districts answer its purpose equally well. The nest is usually 
placed in an isolated part of the steppe on sand, and is formed of a few dry grasses, or of small pebbles in a 
small depression of the soil. About the construction of this pebble-nest Dr. Dybowski, who found such a one in Da- 
rusun, says: — “They build on the rocky banks of the rivers. The nest is formed of small pebbles, which are so 
“arranged as to join each other perfectly, and to leave no openings between them. It is either quite flat or a 
“little depressed in the middle, and is sometimes placed on a slight elevation”. He adds that all cracks and holes of the 
ground round it, are also filled up with stones. This last precaution is probably to prevent the young birds when just 
hatched and still feeble, from falling into the holes and getting Injured. What the meaning of this curious pebble-nest 
is, it is not easy to say, perhaps in those parts of the country there is no other material available, and the ground 
being very uneven and rocky the birds have found out that small smooth pebbles make a suitable couch for the eggs. 
It is also possible that they have discovered that pebbles once heated, keep warm for a long time, or that the eggs are 
less visible on such a stony spotted surface. I remember to have seen in France some years ago a nest of a pair of 
these birds, which had the free run of some fifteen acres of dry park-land. In this case the nest also contained pebbles, 
but the whole surface of it was not covered with them. They formed rather an addition to, than the real material of 
the nest; perhaps, however, this may have been attributable to the want of other material close at hand. The eggs are 
laid from the end of April to the middle of July according to circumstances. Seebohm, who found a nest on the Lower 
Danube, tells us that the two eggs are placed side by side in the nest, with the small ends pointing in the same 
direction; that both birds assist in the incubation and that when one is sitting its partner is generally not far away 
standing sentinel, and ready to give the alarm in case of danger. The parents have a habit when disturbed of walking 
away from the nest for some distance, and then take wing, soon returning when the intrusion is over. 
The little chicks, which follow the parents soon after they are hatched, are guarded by the old birds, which at 
other times are very timid, against birds of prey and even dogs, with great courage The young, which grow very 
quickly, feed on insects and vegetable matter, and stay with the parents till the following spring. Very interesting accounts 
of the habits of this bird from its arrival on its breeding grounds until the eggs are laid, are given by Nordmann and 
Demidoff as to birds observed in Southern Russia, and by Radde as to birds on the Tarei-Nor. In the south of Russia 
Nordmann saw these Cranes arrive from the south in the first half of March in flocks numbering sometimes as many as 
from two to three hundred birds. They flew very high generally in the form of a wedge and during their flight the 
individual birds often changed their place in the flock and were very noisy. After their arrival the flocks keep together for 
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