WHITE-TAILED KITE

* * * * *

THE WHOOPING CRANE.--This splendid bird will almost certainly be the
next North American species to be totally exterminated. It is the only
new world rival of the numerous large and showy cranes of the old world;
for the sandhill crane is not in the same class as the white, black and
blue giants of Asia. We will part from our stately _Grus americanus_
with profound sorrow, for on this continent we ne'er shall see his like
again.

The well-nigh total disappearance of this species has been brought close
home to us by the fact that there are less than half a dozen individuals
alive in captivity, while in a wild state the bird is so rare as to be
quite unobtainable. For example, for nearly five years an English
gentlemen has been offering $1,000 for a pair, and the most
enterprising bird collector in America has been quite unable to fill the
order. So far as our information extends, the last living specimen
captured was taken six or seven years ago. The last wild birds seen and
reported were observed by Ernest Thompson Seton, who saw five below Fort
McMurray, Saskatchewan, October 16th, 1907, and by John F. Ferry, who
saw one at Big Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, in June, 1909.

The range of this species once covered the eastern two-thirds of the
continent of North America. It extended from the Atlantic coast to the
Rocky Mountains, and from Great Bear Lake to Florida and Texas. Eastward
of the Mississippi it has for twenty years been totally extinct, and the
last specimens taken alive were found in Kansas and Nebraska.