50 
Chick. Yellowish white. Upper part of head, wing's and back, brown. (From a chick hatched in the Zoological 
Garden of Amsterdam). 
Egg. Figured of the natural size plate XVIII n“. 4 from a specimen laid in the Zoological Garden of Amsterdam. 
Hab. Eastern Siberia, North-eastern Mongolia and Mantchuria, wintering in Corea and the Yangtse basin. 
The White-necked Crane is, no doubt, the bird described by Pallas in-his ‘Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica’ as Grus 
antigone. It is also this bird which is mentioned in ‘The Ibis’ for 1879 by Mr. Seebohm as Grus antigone, for there is 
no proof that the true Grus antigone has ever occurred either in Siberia or in Japan. Again Tegetmeier in his ‘Mono¬ 
graph of the Cranes’ has confounded this species with Grus japonensis. He quotes a passage of Mess’'® Blakiston and 
Pryer about the hawking of the Tancho, the National Crane of Japan. This is the Japanese name for Grus japonensis 
and not for A. leucauchen which is called ^Manazuru' by the Japanese, as Prof. Ijima of Tokio informs me. 
The breeding-range of the White-necked Crane extends over the eastern half of Southern Siberia, North-eastern 
Mongolia and Mantchuria. Radde found it as far west as Lake Kossogul and took its eggs near the UIdsa rivulet. He 
also found it numerous on Lake Tarei, and in the plains north of the Bureja Mountains. Dr. Dybowski found this Crane 
breeding in tolerable numbers in the Darasun country (51° 20' N. lat. and 112° E. long.) on the Amoor and the Ussuri, 
and Prjevalsky obtained young birds near Lake Hanka. There is no evidence that this species has bred in Japan, and 
Prof Ijima thinks it very doubtful whether it has ever done so. 
The nest of this Crane, according to Dr. Dybowski, is placed in the marshy parts of the steppes. The birds 
select an islet elevated a few inches above the surrounding swamp and on it form the nest of dry grass. The structure 
is flat with a small depression in the middle. The birds are said to be very liable to forsake the eggs if repeatedly 
disturbed. Prjevalsky tells us that during the breeding season the male is very attentive to the female, making strange 
gambols before her on the ground, and going through all sorts of peculiar evolutions in the air. 
Radde found eggs of this Crane on the 28th April on the UIdsa River; Dybowski obtained eggs on the 3rd May 
near Darasun, but also as late as the end of June, so that it seems probable that, if disturbed the first time, this Crane 
lays a second clutch of eggs. In the collection of Mr. Philip Crowley are eggs of this species taken by Parvex and 
Dybowski on Lake Baikal in 1872. These eggs were originally received by Canon Tristram from the Maison Verreaux 
by which firm several skins of the birds themselves were obtained at the same time from the same collectors. 
The first chicks of this Crane were found by Prjevalsky near Lake Hanka, as early as the 19th May, so that the 
eggs must have been laid about the middle of April. In confinement a pair of these Cranes bred repeatedly in the Zoolo¬ 
gical Garden of Amsterdam ^), where the incubation was observed to last 30 days, and the young birds under the tender 
care of the parents grew with astonishing rapidity. 
The White-necked Cranes leave their summer quarters in autumn and migrate to the south to spend the winter in 
the Yangtse basin, where specimens were obtained by Styan near Shanghai on January 5th 1889, and in Corea. In Corea 
they are abundant in winter being found everywhere, although less numerous than G. japonensis , and in former days they 
were also common in Japan in winter. On their occurrence in Japan past and present Prof Ijima writes to me that A. 
leucaucJien and G. monachus were the commonest species of Crane in Japan in former days, but both as migrants only. 
The Shogun used to protect these birds, much to the distress of the people, who were not allowed to molest them 
whatever harm they might do to their crops. For killing one of them capital punishment was inflicted. At the time of 
their arrival, in autumn, a large number of men were employed to scatter food about for them and to accustom them to 
the approach of man. The Shogun himself used to hawk them and every year the first Crane thus captured was dispatched 
to Kyoto to be presented to the Emperor. A. leucauchen seems to have been the species that the Shogun used to 
pursue in the neighbourhood of Tokio, then Yedo. Since the fall of the feudal princes no protection has been given to 
these birds, and consequently they have rapidly ceased to visit the country. Now-a-days they are so rare that, as with 
other Cranes, their occasional appearance is specially noticed in the newspapers. 
These Cranes leave their winter quarters very early in the season. Prjevalsky found them arriving about Lake 
Hanka in the beginning of March, when the snow was still on the ground and the night frosts were very severe. The 
principal arrivals, however, were about the middle of March; the birds beginning to take up their position in pairs early 
in April when the marshes become free from ice. Dr. Dybowski saw them arrive at Darasun on the 20th April, and 
Pere David mentions their passing regularly in spring and autumn in small numbers near Peking over the northern parts 
of the province of Tcheli. Taczanowski obtained in March two females of this species from Corea, near Seoul. Canon 
Tristram informs me that in 1891 he believes he saw some of these birds pass over Mogi at the south entrance of the 
inland sea in Japan in 1891 going north. 
i) Jaarboekje Natura Artis Magistra, 1871, p. 199. 
