Evening star., 1946-07-27
This and That
By Charles E. Trdce1DeH.
"HYATTSVILLE, Md.

Dear Sir:
In regard to the inquiry OF R. E. Y
concerning the nine white birds he saw
flying over the Monument Grounds:
We were seated in our yard when
these BIRDS came into view, and, we. too
wondered what they were My husband
quickly got his field glasses, and We were
able to see them clearly
They were the whooping, or white
crane, SO called because of their hoarse
voice-the result of having a windpipe
more than feet long, half of which is
colled under their breastbone. With the
aid of the glasses we could see their long
legs stretched out behind them.
During the first couple of days of the
hunting season in Ohio we have seen
these birds gather by the dozens along
inland streams, frightened from their
feeding grounds, marshes and back wa
ters of Lake Erie and Sandusky Bay by
the shooting.
They are the giraffe OF American
blrddom, also considered one of the
handsomest and most graceful of Amer
ican birds
Sincerely, D. L. E"
our correspondent, we beueVe, is quite
mistaken.
The whooping crane is now nearly ex-
tlnct, and few if any ever get to Wash
ington.
The sandhill crane is about the only
one to come to the District of Columbia
and vicinity.
The whistling swan is regular mi
grant in the fall, but Is rare in the
spring. A few have been found winter
ing about 40 miles from Washington.
The earliest date of arrival hereabouts
is october Is.
The whooping crane, according to
Bird Portraits in Color" formerly bred
commonly on the interior plains of Can
ada from the latitude of Hudson Bay
south to Iowa and Nebraska
I'm migration" continues this stand
ard work" it reached the Atlantic Coast
on the east, and the Eastern foothills
OF the rockies on the west.
1T Wintered from the Gulf States to
Central Mexico. The few that are left
pass the summer in Southern Mackenzie
and Northern Saskatchewan, and winter
in Texas and Louisiana
This magnificent bird still nested oc-
casionally in the Upper Mississippi VAL
ley as late as 1894, and was common
there in earlier times.
I'm more recent years, even to the
present, transients have been reported
occasionally in the Eastern Dakotas and
still more frequently in Oklahoma.
Bent has said of the whooping crane
that it is one of the grandest and most
striking of North American birds. 1t
has retreated before advancing civiliza-
ton, farther west and then farther
north, for it is one of our widest birds,
it cannot stand human companionship.
and it loves the great open spaces in
primitive solitudes'
ITO this may be added" continues our
authority, that the disappearance of
both the whooping and sandhill cranes
was due, in part at least, to the fact
that they were killed in great numbers
as game, for the young birds were said
to equal turkey as table Wand"
The whistling swan is the one with
the breastbone trumpet
DR.. Thomas Sadler Roberts in the
work just quoted, says: THE whistIing
swan is a North American species,
breeding chiefly north of the Arctic
Circle, and migrating in winter to the
southern costal regions of the United
States.
Though much reduced in numbers in
recent years, it still passes through the
interior in f1ocks of considerable size. It
was the trumpeter swan, now nearly ex-
tinct, that once bred in the Northern
United States and Southern Canada.
I'm the two American species of swans
the windpipe is extensively coiled in the
keel of the breastbone which imparts
volume to their loud, far-carrying calls.
THE yellow spot in the bare space in
front of the eye in the adult whistler is
usually regarded as a distinguishing
mark between it and the trumpeter, but
it is not entirely reliable.
THE birds that have it are all
whistlers, but not all birds without it are
trumpeters.'