212 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



of jumping into the air to attract the opposite sex has led to its un- 

 doing. All the writers quoted by Hume mention this habit and its 

 disastrous effects, and Hume himself says : " Owing to the unsportsman- 

 like manner in which these beautiful liirds are massacred during the 

 breeding-season, they are everywhere diminishing in numbers, and 

 will, in another half-a-century, be, I fear, almost extinct." 



Mr. J. Davidson also recorded that year by year he noticed 

 a diminution in their numbers in the Deccan. They are not yet 

 extinct, nor have their numbers decreased to the extent Hume 

 feared ; but there can be no doubt that everywhere the Lesser 

 Florican is less common now-a-days than it was \\hen Hume 

 wrote in 1879, over forty years ago. 



Davidson, describing the way in which they are killed, writes : — 



" Floriean are found sparingly in Mysore; but I only saw one 

 on two occasions in the Tumljuv district during last year. It 

 is a migrant during the rains to Western Guzerat, where it is 

 remorselessly shot down while breeding ; but apparently avoids the 

 Panch Mahals almost entirely. At least, only one specimen has 

 been secured there during the last few years. 



" They are ordinarily shot in the Deccan in tho long grass 

 hhirs, being flushed by a line of beaters — the guns walking along 

 with the beaters. In the breeding-season the cocks are sometimes 

 shot in the following way : in the early morning the gunner — for 

 one can hardly call him a sportsman — goes to a hhiv where he knows 

 there are birds, and waits till he sees one jump up in the grass and 

 cry. He then stalks within fifty or sixty yards, and again waits 

 till the bird jumps, and then runs as fast as he can towards the spot. 

 The bird generally rises thirty or forty yards off, and there is a fair 

 amount of excitement, if not of sport, in shooting them in this way." 



Captain Butler gives a similar description as follows : — 



" For my part, I have always protested against the wholesale 

 destruction of these fine birds in the breeding-season, and tried very 

 hard when I was in Deesa to persuade sportsmen (!) to spare the 

 hens. But it was of no use; they argued that "if they did not 

 shoot them someone else would," and consequently the Florican was 

 shown no mercy. 



" The usual method of shooting them is to walk them up in line, 

 when they rise usually within easy shot. They are easily killed, and 

 I have seen longer shots made at Florican than any other bird I 

 know. In fact they drop if you fire at them at almost any possible 

 distance (provided, of course, you hold the gun straight). At times, 



