I have not had the good fortune to witness a nest of the sarus in course of construction, but from the behaviour of the owners when heavy rain falls after the nest is completed, I believe that both sexes take part in construction. As the nesting season is in June, July, August, and September, a good deal of rain usually falls while nesting operations are going on. The nest is a mound or cone, composed of rushes and reeds, of which the diameter is two feet at least. The top of this cone, on which the eggs are placed, is usually about a foot above the surface of the water. Thus the eggs lie only a little above the water level; nevertheless, they always feel quite dry, as does the layer of rushes on which they are placed. This is rather surprising—one would expect the water to get soaked up into the parts of the nest above the surface; but this does not happen. It is needless to say that if the top of the nest became submerged it would be impossible to keep the eggs dry; hence, when very heavy rain causes the water level round the nest to rise, the parent saruses raise the top of the nest by adding more material to it.
Two eggs are usually laid. These, as befits the size of the owners, are very large. It is as much as one can do to make both ends meet of a tape eleven inches long, passed round the long axis of the egg. The eggs vary considerably in size, but are usually of a creamy hue, They may be with or without markings. The shell is very thick and hard, so that if sarus’s eggs were used for electioneering purposes, fatalities would often occur.
Various observers give very different accounts of the behaviour of the parent saruses when their nest is attacked. The general experience is that they show no fight, but that they retire gracefully as soon as the human being gets within twenty yards of the nest. Hume, however, records one case of a sitting sarus making such vigorous pokes and drives at the man who approached her when sitting on the nest that he was forced to flap her in the face vigorously with his waist cloth before she left her eggs. That, says Hume, is the nearest approach to a fight for its _penates_ he has ever seen a sarus make. Recently I visited a nest of these birds, which was situated in a small patch of water, perhaps forty feet square, with a millet field on one side and paddy on the other three. I was on horseback, not wishing to wade nearly to my waist. With me were three men. When we first noticed the nest, the hen was sitting on it and the cock standing near by. As we approached the female rose to her feet very slowly, and then I could see that the nest contained a young one. When we were at a distance of some ten yards the female began to move her feet as if scraping the nest, and the young bird betook itself quietly to the water, and swam slowly into the neighbouring flooded paddy field. The hen then slowly descended from the nest into the water and quietly walked off. On reaching the nest, I found in it one egg. I sent one of the men after the youngster, which he quickly secured and brought to me to look at. It was about the size of a small bazaar fowl, and had perhaps been hatched three days. It was covered with soft down. The down on the upper parts was of a rich reddish fawn colour, the back of the neck, a band along the backbone, and a strip on each wing being the places where the colour was most intense; these were almost chestnut in hue. The lower parts were of a cream colour, into which the reddish fawn merged gradually at the sides of the body. The eyes were large and black. The bill was of pink hue and broad at the base where the yellow lining of the mouth showed. The pink of the bill was most pronounced towards the base, fading almost to white at the tip. The legs and feet were pale pink, the toes being slightly webbed. Even at that stage of the youngster’s existence the legs were long, and enabled him to swim with ease, but they were not strong enough to support him when he tried to walk. Sarus cranes cannot walk properly until they are several months old.