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“or buff tint throughout, and very noticeably smaller than its parents. They never appear to have more than one young 
“one with them; but it does not at all follow that they do not lay more than one egg. Our commonest Indian crane, 
“which usually lays two and sometimes, though rarely, three eggs, and which has no long or arduous journey to perform, 
“seldom succeeds in rearing more than a single young one. Judging from those of its congeners which are best known 
“to me — G. antigone and G. australasiamts — as also of what is recorded of the Common and Demoiselle Cranes 
“(whose nests I have never myself taken), I should suppose that they lay two eggs; but, if this be the case, I can 
“only say that out of more than a hundred pairs that I have seen from first to last, I never yet saw any with more than 
“one young one. 
“The watchful care and tender solicitude evinced by the old birds for their only chick is most noticeable. They 
“never suffer the young one to stray from their side, and, while they themselves are seldom more than thirty yards apart, 
“and generally much closer, the young, I think, is invariably somewhere between them. If either bird find a particularly 
“promising rush-tuft, it will call the little one to its side by a faint creaking cry, and watch it eating, every now and then 
“affectionately running its long bill through the young one’s feathers. If, as sometimes happens, the young only be shot, 
“the old birds, though rising in the air with many cries, will not leave the place, but for hours after, keep circling round 
“and round high out of gun — or even rifle — shot, and for many days afterwards will return, apparently disconsolately, 
“seeking their lost treasure. 
“Like the Saras, these birds pair, I think, for life; at any rate, a pair, whose young one was shot last year, and 
“both of whom were subsequently wounded about the legs, so as to make them very recognisable, appeared again this 
“year, accompanied by a young one, and were at once noticed as being our very friends of the past year by both the 
“native fowlers and myself. I was glad to see they were none the worse for their swollen, crooked, bandy legs; and this 
“year at least they have got safe home, I hope, with their precious charge. 
“Throughout their sojourn here the young remain as closely attached to their parents as when they first arrive; 
“but, doubtless by the time the party return to their northern homes, the young are dismissed, with a blessing, to shift 
“for themselves. Long before they leave, the rich buff or sandy colour of the young bird has begun to give place to 
“the white of the adult plumage, and the faces and foreheads, which (as in the Common Crane) are feathered in the 
“young, have begun to grow bare. This, I notice, seems to result from the barbs composing the vanes of the tiny 
“feathers falling off and leaving only the naked hair-like shafts. 
“Each year small parties of birds are noticeable unaccompanied by any young ones, and never separating into 
“ pairs. These, when they first come, still show a few buff feathers, and have a dingy patch on the tarsus; and though 
“before they leave us they become almost as purely white, and have almost as well-coloured faces and legs as the old 
“ones that are in pairs, they never seem to attain to the full weight of these latter. From these facts I am disposed to 
“infer that these parties, which include individuals of both sexes, consist of birds of the second year, that our birds do 
“not either breed or assume their perfect plumage till just at the close of the second year, and that, like pigeons and 
“many others, they do not attain their full weight until they have bred once at least. 
“Unlike the four other species of crane with which I am acquainted, G. leticogermttis never seems to resort, during 
“any part of the day or night, to dry plains or fields in wfijch to feed; and, unlike them too, it is exclusively a vege- 
“ table-eater. I have never found the slightest traces of insects or reptiles (so common in those of the other species) in 
“any of the twenty odd stomachs of these White Cranes that I have myself examined. Day and night they are to be 
“ seen, if undisturbed, standing in the shallow water. Asleep, they rest on one leg, with the head and neck somehow 
“nestled into the back; or they will stand like marble statues, contemplating the water with curved necks, not a little 
“resembling some White Egret on a gigantic scale; or, again, we see them marching to and fro, slowly and gracefully, 
“ feeding among the low rushes. Other cranes, and notably the Common one and the Demoiselle, daily pay visits in 
“large numbers to our fields, where they commit great havoc, devouring grain of all descriptions, flower shoots, and 
“even some kinds of vegetables. The White Crane, however, seeks no such dainties, but finds its frugal food — rush seeds, 
“bulbs, corns, and even leaves of various aquatic plants — in the cool waters where it spends its whole time. Without 
“preparations by me for comparison, I hardly like to be too positive on this score; but I am impressed with the idea 
“that the stomach in this species is much less muscular than in any of the others with which I am acquainted. The 
“enormous number of small pebbles that their stomachs contain is remarkable. Out of an old male I took sufficient very 
“ nearly to fill an ordinary-sized wineglass, and that, too, after they had been thoroughly cleaned and freed from the 
“macerated vegetable matter which clung to them. These pebbles were mostly quartz (amorphous and crystalline), green- 
“stone, and some kind of porphyritic rock; the largest scarcely exceeded in size an ordinary pea, while the majority 
“were not bigger than large pins’ heads. Perhaps, in the hands of some abler mineralogist than myself, these tiny frag- 
“ments (of which I have a small bag full) may prove to contain as yet unnoticed mineral forms from Central Asia. I 
“have found similar pebbles in the stomachs of the Grey and Demoiselle Cranes, but never in anything like such numbers 
