204 GAME-BIKDS OF INDIA 



of a Lesser Florican, and this i-ecord is quoted by Blyth in his 

 ' Birds of Burmah,' p. 152. It is, however, extremely doubtful if 

 this record is a really correct one, and Sypheotis aurita should not 

 be accepted as a Burmese bird on the strength of it. The next 

 point furthest east from which it had been recorded up to 1913 is 

 Dinajpore, from which place there is a specimen in the British 

 Museum, and further south of this again from Purulia, Purnea and 

 Nadia, from each of which district stragglers are occasionally 

 obtained, but it had never been obtained from any of the districts 

 east of the Teesta or south of the Brahmapootra rivers, leaving thus 

 a very wide stretch of country or sea to be passed over before the 

 Arrakan coast is reached. 



To Hume's districts of Purnea and Nadia in Bengal, from both 

 of which districts I have also seen specimens, must be added Maldah, 

 where birds have been seen and shot by Mr. Gr. Hennessy. 



In 1913 Mr. H. V. O'Donel recorded this bird from Hasimara 

 Tea Estate on the Toorsa river, some fifty miles east of the Teesta. 

 Specimens were seen on several occasions — one young male being 

 shot — but all in the months of April, May and June. Mr. O'Donel 

 reports them as very irregular in their visits and never anything but 

 "uncommon." 



As regards the Punjab and North- West Provinces, birds wander 

 into these so regularly, year after year, though in but small numbers, 

 that it is hardly possible to regard these Provinces as outside their 

 normal habitat. 



In the south, Major Ch. Maclnroy says that "Florican are pretty 

 numerous throughout East Mysore, but, for some reason which I 

 cannot divine, are not nearly so much so in the western division of 

 the Province." He further records a bag of thirty birds made some 

 twenty-five miles from Bangalore and adds that four or five birds 

 have been killed in a morning near Coconada. 



In his list of the Birds of the South Konkan, Vidal remarks that 

 the Lesser Florican " rarely pass the Ghat barrier which divides the 

 Konkan from the Deccan. In seven seasons spent in the Eatnagiri 



district I have only seen U\o birds I have also heard 



of one having been obtained at Dapuli." 



Mr. H. S. Symons reports a bird shot in 1909 near Panwell in 



