Wrens breed north to Maine and Manitoba and winter along the Gulf Coast. The Western House Wren is found from the Plains to the Pacific coast ranges.
THE WADING BIRDS (Struthiones)
In this class of birds, the beak is generally slender, the legs long and stilt-like. The struthiones live in marshy spots, and on the banks of rivers. They feed upon the reptiles and insects found in water and marshy districts, and upon plants. Most of the wading birds are migratory.
Adjutant (Leptoptilus argala), is a bird, common during summer in India. Generally stork-like in appearance, it stands about five feet high, and measures fourteen or fifteen feet from tip to tip of extended wings. The four-sided pointed bill is very large; the head and neck are almost bare; and a sausage-like pouch, sometimes sixteen inches long, and apparently connected with respiration, hangs down from the base of the neck. While feeding largely on carcases and offal about the towns, it also fishes for living food, and sometimes devours birds and small mammals. The loose under-tail feathers are sometimes used for decorative purposes.
Bittern (Botaurus).—The American species makes a rude nest of sticks, reeds, etc., in its marshy haunts, and lays four or five greenish-brown eggs. The bird is sluggish, and its flight is neither swift nor long sustained. When assailed, it fights desperately with bill and claws; and it is dangerous to approach it incautiously when wounded, as it strikes with its long sharp bill, if possible, at the eye. It is common in many parts of North America, migrating according to the season. The crown of the head is reddish brown, and the colors and markings of the plumage differ [217] considerably from those of the common bittern.
Crane (Grallatores cinerea).—This family of birds differs from herons, storks, etc., in having the hind-toe placed higher on the leg than the front ones, and in certain characters of bill and skull. The members are also less addicted to marshy places, and feed not only on animal, but, to a considerable extent, on vegetable food. The cranes are all large birds, long-legged, long-necked, long-billed, and of powerful wing. Some of them perform great migrations, and fly at a great height in the air. The young cranes are helpless and require to be fed. Only two eggs are laid. The crane, when standing, is about four feet in height; the prevailing color is ash-gray; the head bears bristly feathers, and has a naked crown, reddish in the male; the bill, which is longer than the head, is reddish at the root, dark green at the apex; the feet are blackish; the tail is short and straight. They are very stately birds, though their habit of bowing and dancing is often grotesque. They feed on roots, seeds, etc., as well as on worms, insects, reptiles and even some of the smallest quadrupeds. The flesh is much esteemed.
The Whooping Crane (G. americana) is considerably larger than the common crane, which it otherwise much resembles except in color; its plumage, in its adult state, is pure white, the tips of the wings black. It spends the winter in the southern parts of North America. In summer it migrates far north.
Heron (Ardea) a large bird covered with long, loose down, with large wings, and a hard horny bill longer than the head, compressed from side to side, and united to the skull by firm, broad bones.
In the Heron genus—which includes the species commonly known as Egrets—the plumage is beautiful, but seldom exhibits very gay colors; white, brown, black, and slate, finely blended, generally predominating. The body is small in proportion to the length of the neck and the limbs. Herons are very voracious, feeding mostly on fish and other aquatic animals; but they also often prey on snakes, frogs, rats, and mice, and the young of other birds.
The Common Heron (Ardea cinerea) measures about three feet from the point of the bill to the tip of the tail. It is of a delicate gray color on the upper parts, the quill-feathers are black, the tail of a deep slate color, and the long plume is glossy dark. It generally builds its nest on a high tree; and as many as eighty nests have been counted on a single oak. America has many species of herons, most numerous in its warmer parts.