THE FLORICAN 135 



It is a bird of the open grass country, where it lives solitary, 

 preferring thin grass, though it will take to high thick growth 

 if there is no other cover available ; in thick cover it lies close, 

 but in thin short grass it is hard to get near and runs fast 

 and far. 



When flushed it flies slowly, but with frequent wing-beats, 

 and generally for only a mile or less, and succumbs to a com- 

 paratively slight blow. Like so many other solitary birds, it 

 is noticed to affect particular spots, these being soon after 

 reoccupied when the specimen found haunting them has been 

 killed. 



The greater part of the florican's food is vegetable, including 

 sprouts, seeds, and runners of grasses, berries, mustard-tops, 

 milky-juiced leaves, &c., but it takes a great deal of animal food 

 also, feeding particularly on locusts when these can be had, 

 besides grasshoppers and beetles. Corn it does not seem to care 

 for. In the season when blister-beetles abound it feeds freely 

 on them, and is then a very undesirable article of food, as these 

 insects have the properties of cantharides, and a corresponding 

 effect on those who partake of the bird which has eaten them. 

 In the ordinary way, however, the florican is prized as the 

 finest of Indian game birds for the table ; its flesh is of high 

 flavour, with a layer of brown without and white within. 



The breeding customs of this bu'd are peculiar ; the sexes do 

 not live together, but in the time of courtship, that is to say 

 from March to June, the cock makes himself conspicuous by 

 rising perpendicularly into the air some ten or fifteen yards, 

 with flapping wings and a peculiar humming note ; sinking 

 down, he rises again, and so for five or six times, until a female 

 approaches him, for at this time the sexes, though not actually 

 associating, tend to draw near together. He then displays on 

 the ground, with erected and expanded tail, still repeating the 

 humming sound. His affections are very transient, for he takes 

 no more notice of his temporary mate. 



For her part, she seeks thick grass cover, and lays two eggs 

 at the root of a grass clump, with no nest. The eggs are about 

 the size of small hen's eggs, of a more or less bright olive-green 

 spotted with brown ; one is generally larger and richer coloured 



