STPHEOTIS AURITA 205 



the S. Bombaj' Presidency, and another some twenty years earlier at 

 Mahahixmi ; Dewar, it should also be mentioned, notes that it is 

 seen sometimes near and about Madras, but it occurs in that district 

 regularly and is resident, and it extends north into Orissa, Blyth 

 having shot it near Cuttack. 



In the Ratnagiri district Mr. G. W. Vidal occasionally saw the 

 Likh, and Mr. J. S. Hardy put up a bird in that district on the 

 7th February, 1913. 



In a footnote, p. 24 of ' Game-Birds, " Hume quotes Hodgson as 

 saying: "Appears here (Valley of Nepal) about middle of May and 

 disappears middle of June," and then he (Hume) goes on to say : " It 

 may be that there is a permanent colony of this species, of which I 

 know nothing as yet, in northern Behar, Gorakhpur, Busti, etc." 



In partial confirmation of this surmise Mr. A. E. Osmaston sent 

 me the skin of a young male from Gorakhpur, and in the letter sent 

 with it wrote : "I also saw them at the beginning of last rains 

 (1909) but I have never seen them at any other time of the year here 

 and I presume they only come here to breed, and I think only a few- 

 come even then, as the grassy land they seem to like is very limited 

 in extent." 



This record, therefore, though confirming the presence of Likh in 

 and about Gorakhpur during the breeding-season, does away with the 

 theory of a " permanent colony," and implies that these birds as well 

 as those which reach Nepal migrate from a good deal further south 

 than Hume imagined. From Bihar Mr. Inglis reports them as 

 decidedly rare ; he has not seen many himself, l)ut he tells me that 

 he has skins of birds shot in Bihar in April and May, in one case that 

 of a male just assuming breeding-plumage. 



Nidification. — The breeding-season of the Lesser Florican varies 

 much in different localities. Jerdon says that some birds breed in 

 Southern India from July to November, and that he has put the hen 

 bird off her nest in August in the Deccan, and in October near 

 Trichinopoly, and he also says that he has heard of hens being found 

 sitting as late as January. Hume says that the majority breed in 

 September and October, and this agrees with the observations of 

 most other observers in the more northern of the bird's breeding- 

 haunts. As regards Kathiawar, however, it would seem that they 

 commence rather earlier. Colonel L. L. Fenton writes me : — 



