Bird lore - Project Puffin

Dick, the Sandhill Crane
The following story told me by Mrs. William Derby, of Garibaldi, Oregon, of a
pet Sandhill Crane that she had in Nebraska in 1879, is interesting not only as a
realistic picture of the bird's habits in domestication, but for the hints it gives of the
play instinct,
Bailey.
sense of humor, and general Crane psychology.
THEY
—
Florence Merriam
ketched him when they was out on the prairie—they'd been
out at Swan Lake elk hunting. He was hid in the high grass and
the old Crane, he skulked off. They got out and picked him up—he
was nothin' but a downy feller. They ketched frogs and cut up and give him.
When they got home we'd ben off on a clam hunt, and we fed him on clams
till the corn was ripe in the fall.
"He had peeped for four days under a box, and then 1 took him down
fishin'. He just jumped up and down and hollered—seemed as if he laughed.
He jumped up and down in the water to wash himself and then, when he was
through, he was ready to leave the country—he went just as hard as he could
go toward the corn-field, and me after him. He ran onto a turkey hen, and
she knocked him into a bunch of cactus. He turned right 'round and come
for me then, peeping as hard as he could peep. I took him up in my arms and
carried him back to the house and laid him down on the grass, and he come
and sat by me. He never offered to run again—would foller just like a dog.
"That was June. In August we built our sod-house. It took me about five
weeks to haul the sod—we had a pair of steers I was breakin'—I was fifteen
then. I'd get my sod loaded and Dick would walk along with me. I'd say,
'Dick, let's run, have a race;' and he'd hustle around to get him a grasshopper
native grasshoppers, big fellers. I'd say, 'Now Dick, you ready?' And he'd
say. Peep. Sometimes he'd kind o' help himself with his wings, tiptoe along,
and he'd beat me to the team. Then he'd stick up his head, straight up, and
laugh—sounded more like a person than anything else— you could hear him
laugh for a mile. But, if I beat him, he didn't have nothin" to say!"
By this time he had grown about five feet, so tall that, as Mrs. Derby
explained, "he could stretch up and feel of my face. Go and lay down on the
ground and pretend we was asleep, and he'd feel 'round and then come and
jwke 'round in our heads, as if pickin' himself, and take hold of our eyelids,
to make us open our eyes—he never would hurt—and all the time kept up a
low talkin'. Then he'd go to sleep—fold up his legs and sit down flat and
put his head on his shoulders.
"Along in the summer, a Hawk or Eagle or something swooped down at him
or a chicken, and Dick screamed and the old man went out with a gun, and
Dick went right up into the air and sailed 'round, and when the bird dropped
he dropped and jMcked him up and throwed him 'round and laughed and peeped
and made all sorts of Crane noises.
(355)
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