2226 THE BUSTARDS, THICKNEES, AND CRANES 



yield a pretty copious crop of grasses; but grasses not so thick nor so high as to im- 

 pede the movements or vision of a well-sized bird that is ever afoot and always on 

 the lookout. In spite of the exquisite flavor for which these birds are so famed, 

 floricans are by no means fastidious in their food, scarcely anything, from lizards and 

 snakes to young shoots and grass, coming amiss. They are, however, generally 

 more herbivorous than carnivorous, although when the country is overrun with 

 locusts they feed almost entirely on those noisome insects. Shy and wary in disposi- 

 tion, the florican, except on the rare occasions when he is in thick covert, is a diffi- 

 cult bird to approach within range, more especially as he is a strong flyer, and will 

 carry a heavy charge of shot without harm. Unlike a heron, a florican flies with its 

 head stretched out in front, and its legs tucked away beneath the body. Except in 

 the breeding season, when they utter a kind of cluck, floricans are silent birds; and 

 they are almost peculiar in that the two sexes, even during the pairing time, live 

 apart from one another in small companies. During the latter season, the troops of 

 males and females come into the same neighborhood; and when a male wishes to 

 attract a temporary partner, he does so by going through an elaborate series of 

 performances somewhat similar to the well-known pantomimic display of the cock 

 turkey, although more prolonged and energetic, the bird at times rising perpendicu- 

 larly in the air, and humming in a peculiar deep tone. The female lays two eggs in 

 an apology for a nest at the foot of a tussock in some thick grass jungle, one egg 

 being generally more richly colored than the other. In winter these birds become 

 extraordinarily fat; and at that season florican shooting in the valley of the Ganges 

 and other districts is a favorite sport, which may be pursued either on foot or from 

 the back of an elephant." 



THE THICKNESS 

 Family CEDICNEMID^E 



Although placed by many ornithologists with the plovers, the genus of birds 

 typically represented by the European thicknee or stone curlew ( CEdicnemus scolo- 

 pax} agrees with the bustards in the holorhinal skull, and the absence of a process 

 at the lower end of the humerus, as well as in the three-toed feet; and we may ac- 

 cordingly follow Dr. Fiirbringer in regarding the group as nearly allied to the latter. 

 Externally the thicknees differ from the bustards by the presence of a tufted oil 

 gland, by the form and position of the nostrils, by the feet being webbed to the sec- 

 ond joint, and by the second, in place of the third quill of the wing being the long- 

 est. Internally, they differ by the vertebrae of the back articulating by cup and 

 ball, instead of saddle-shaped surfaces, and thereby resemble the plovers. Both have 

 two notches on the hinder border of the breastbone, and in both the metatarsus is 

 reticulated all round. In the thicknees the beak is of moderate length, stout, and 

 nearly straight, with a slight depression at the base, and the ridge of the upper man- 

 dible prominent, the long nostrils, which do not open in a groove, being placed near 

 the middle of its length. The wings are of moderate length; the tail is graduated 



