378 OTIDID^. 



very pale olive-brown, with more of a greenish than a brownish 

 tinge, clouded, spotted, blotched, and streaked, but everywhere 

 thinly, with brown, only slightly darker than the ground of the 

 egg, but altogether of an umber tint instead of the olive of the 

 ground. The next is a yellowish stone-colour, pretty thickly, but 

 very faintly, clouded and streaked with a deeper and slightly 

 redder tint. 



" The next egg has but very little gloss, and is a nearly uniform 

 dark olive-brown, with only the faintest traces here and there of 

 streaks of a darker tint. The next is an excessively glossy egg of 

 the same colour, everywhere thickly clouded and mottled with a 

 slightly darker and more ruddy shade of brown. The last egg is 

 of much the same colour as the preceding, but more glossy than 

 the former and less so than the latter. There is a conspicuous cap 

 of nearly confluent clouds and blotches of a redder brown than the 

 ground of the egg, and streaks and blotches of the same colour, 

 but somewhat fainter, are scattered over the whole surface of the 



egg-*' 



Out of sixty eggs in my collection no two are precisely alike. 



In length they vary from 2*75 to 3-42, and in breadth from 2*05 

 to 2*45 ; but the average of sixty eggs is 3-11 by 2*24. 



Sypheotis foengalensis (P. L. S. Mull.). The Bengal Florican. 



Sypheotides bengalensis (Gin.), Jerd. B. 2nd. ii, p. 616. 



Sypheotis bengalensis (Miill.), Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 838. 



The Bengal Florican is almost confined to Eastern Bengal, and 

 those portions of Bengal, Oudh, and the North- West Provinces 

 lying north of the Granges. Jerdon says that it spreads through 

 the Valley of the Jumna into Rajpootana, the Cis-Sutlej States, 

 and parts of the Punjab ; but this is, I think, quite 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 any- 

 where west of the Kadir of the Ganges, except as a rare straggler 

 in the Dhoon ; and there again it does not, to the best of my belief, 

 extend further west than the Kadir of the Jumna. In Meerut I 

 have killed both the Houbara and the Likh, but it is only when 

 you get quite down into the Kadir of the Ganges at Hastinapoor 

 and Mukdoompoor, or again southwards below Gurmooktesur, 

 that you meet the true Florican, and here we used to pick up a few 

 couples every cold season. 



Mr. Hodgson gives an account of the manners and nidification 

 of this species, derived chiefly from native huntsmen. He says : 



"The Florican is neither polygamous nor monogamous, nor 

 migratory nor solitary. These birds dwell permanently and always 

 breed in the districts they frequent, and they dwell also socially 

 but with a rigorous separation of the sexes, such as I fancy is 

 parallelled in no other species. Four to eight are always found in 

 the same vicinity, though seldom very close together, and the 

 males are invariably and entirely apart from the females after they 



