THE M ANTCHURIAN CRANE 
Grus montignesia. 
Plate XLYI. 
M. de Montigny, when Consul for France at Shanghai, about ten years ago, was charged by his Government 
with a commission to obtain a herd of Yaks—the domestic cattle of the high plains of Central Asia — for the 
purpose of testing their capability of being acclimatized in Europe. In the year 1854, M. de Montigny having 
succeeded in securing six of these interesting animals, brought them with him on his return to Paris, as 
likewise a pair of magnificent Cranes, which had been captured for him by the persons employed in collecting 
the Yaks. 
On the arrival of M. de Montigny in Paris, the late Prince Charles Bonaparte, ever anxious to do honour 
to merit, proposed to name these birds, which he then believed to be undescribed, Grits montignesia. It has 
been since suggested that this Crane is the Grus japonensis of Brisson, and, probably, the Gras viridirostris of 
Vieillot. Still, as the first of these appellations indicates a wrong locality, and as there is some doubt about 
the applicability of the second, it is, perhaps, better for the present to retain Prince Bonaparte’s designation 
for the species. 
Some years since Sir John Bowring obtained a pair of these Cranes in China, and transmitted them to 
England as a present to Her Majesty the Queen. Having been shortly afterwards added to the many muni¬ 
ficent donations bestowed by Her Majesty upon the Zoological Society, they afforded the opportunity for a 
careful and elaborate study of the living bird by Mr. Wolf, the results of which are given in the accompanying 
plate. This is the first drawing which has been published of this species, although representations of it 
constantly occur in the pictures of the Chinese, and even in their paper-hangings, and it is said to be a sacred 
bird of their singular religion. 
The Mantchurian Cranes bred in the Menagerie attached to the Museum at Paris, for three consecutive 
years, and one of the young birds produced there in 1855, is still, with the two presented by Her Majesty, in 
the Society’s Collection, the mate of the former having been killed by an accident soon after its arrival in 1856. 
Every accommodation has been given to these fine birds by the Zoological Society, in the hope of inducing 
them to follow the example of the pair in the Jardin des Plantes, but though eggs have been laid these last 
two years, and the female has manifested an inclination to sit, no young ones have yet been produced in 
the Regent’s Park. 
Of the group of true Cranes, to which the present species belongs, the Society’s Collection likewise 
embraces examples of the Common Crane of Europe, the Australian Crane, and the Saras Crane of India, 
The American Cranes ( Grus americana and G. canadensis), are at present, unfortunately, desiderata to the 
Menagerie. 
