SYPHEOTIS BENGALENSIS 221 



and showing some new feathers coloured as in the female. From this 

 we may, I think, infer that it takes the young cock at least two years 

 before it assumes the full plumage of the breeding cock. It will be 

 seen that Blyth does not say that his Floricans, after having a retro- 

 grade moult, then moulted in the succeeding moult into full feathering, 

 but he puts down this failure to assume the fully adult garb to the 

 effects of captivity. The facts, in reference to the assumption of the 

 fully adult plumage, appear to be these. In the autumn moult of its 

 first year the young male bird retains its female plumage, but in the 

 succeeding spring moult acquires a colouration intermediate between 

 the two sexes. The autumn moult of the second year may often see 

 the young cock lose a certain amount of the colouring he had gained 

 in the spring, but at the next spring moult he goes further still 

 towards the plumage of the adult, and on the completion of this 

 moult, when he is just under two years old, he either obtains the 

 adult plumage in full or else he does so at the second yearly moult 

 in the autumn. From this time onwards there is no further retro- 

 grade step. Of course, I have seen very many cocks in the winter in 

 either wholly female or half-stage feathering, but these have been 

 small birds which, though they were sometimes very fat and in prime 

 condition, never weighed more than 2 to 2J lbs. There is no doubt 

 that a cock Florican takes at least two years to grow to his greatest 

 size and weight, and it is but natural that his dress should keep pace 

 with his growth, and that he should not arrive at his full splendour 

 of plumage until he also arrives at his full vigour and size. 



Distribution. — Although so many years have passed since Hume 

 described the habitat of the Florican, there is but little to add to his 

 account. He says : — 



" The Bengal Florican is almost confined to Eastern Bengal, the 

 valley of Assam, the Bhutan Dooars, and those portions of Bengal, 

 Oudh and the North-Wesfcern Provinces lying north of the Ganges. 

 Jerdon says that it spreads through the valley of the Jumna into 

 Eajputana, the Cis-Sutlej States, and parts of the Punjab ; but this 

 is wrong. It is the Houbara that is found in these localities, not 

 the Bengal Florican ; but sportsmen constantly call the Houbara 

 the Florican, and hence the mistake. I have never seen the true 

 Florican anywhere west of the Kadar of the Ganges, except as a rare 

 straggler in the Dun ; and there again it does not, to the best of my 



