232 GAME-BIKDS OF INDIA 



the wings, and if he be at all alarmed, it is seldom suspended under 

 200 to 300 yards, whilst not infrequently it is continued so as to 

 carry the bird wholly out of sight and pursuit. When flying, the 

 neck is extended before the body and the legs tucked up under it, 

 whereas the whole family of the herons fly with neck retracted over 

 the back and legs stretched out behind. The walk of the Florican, 

 like that of the heron, is firm and stately, easy and graceful ; he can 

 move afoot with much speed, and is habitually a great pedestrian, 

 seldom using his powerful wings, except to escape from danger, or to 

 go to and from his feeding-ground at morn and eve, or to change it 

 when he has exhausted a lieat. 



" This species is silent and tranquil, and, except in the breeding 

 season, seldom utters a sound, but, if startled, its note is a shrill 

 metallic chik, chik-chik, and the more ordinary note is the same, l)Ut 

 softer and somewliat plaintive." 



Mr. Primrose endorses this, and says that, on being flushed, it 

 litters a sort of chirrup, but is otherwise silent. I have myself heard 

 them give a sound when flushed, but should have described it rather 

 as a croak than a chirrup ; other than this and the curious humming 

 they give when courting, I have not heard them make any sound. 



They are not gregarious as are most other bustards, and one bird 

 will seldom be found very close to another. 



Colonel Macgregor says that he once put up four I<'Iorican within 

 a radius of thirty yards, but this is unusual, and birds are seldom 

 found within a couple of hundred yards of one another, especially 

 where the jungle is thin and the birds can move about freelj'. Once 

 when duck-shooting I saw two old cock-birds in the open within a 

 few yards of one another, and when I sent a man round to drive 

 them overhead he also put up a hen, and my companion and I 

 accounted for all three. Once also I shot two hens out of a patch of 

 grass not a hundred yards long, and once or twice I have taken two 

 clutches of eggs laid quite close to one another. 



Big bags of Florican are seldom made, though on one occasion a 

 so-called sportsman in Assam shot sixty-four of these beautiful birds 

 in one day daring the breeding season. There had been very early 

 and very unusually heavy rains, and, in consequence, a vast area of 

 grass-covered plain had become temporarily submerged, and for miles 

 in every direction there was water varying in depth from a few inches 

 to two or three feet deep. In the centre of this was a somewhat 



