MASON AND LEPROY. 259 



kinds/' One English specimen shot was filled with caterpillars, 

 snails and beetles. Jerd. B. I. Ill, 615. 



Very largely on the small fruit of the Ber, or the berries of 

 the Grewia, or the young shoots of the lemon grass and other 

 herbs: now picking off an ant or two, now a grasshopper or beetle 

 and now a tiny land shsll or stone, but living chiefly as a vege- 

 tarian and never with us (to judge from the thousands I have 

 examined) feeding on lizards, snakes and the like. H. & M. G. B. 

 I. Ill, 18-19. On seeds and insects, and there is a small weed that 

 covers open sand-waste in this part (Sirsa Dist.) of the Punjab that 

 they are very fond of. It has a small flower like a forget-me-not. 

 B. N. H. S. J. XVI, 373. 



Seeds, small fruits, shoots of plants, and insects. Houbara are 

 excellent eating as a rule, but they contract a strong and un- 

 pleasant flavour at times from feeding on shoots of mustard and 

 other allied plants grown as oil-seeds. F. I. IV, 197-198. 



1416. Sypheotis aunta. Lesser Florikin or Likh. The chief 

 food of the Florikin is grasshoppers. I have found also blister 

 beetles (Mylabris), Scarabsei, Centipedes and even small lizards. 

 Jerd. B. I. Ill, 623. 



" The Lesser Florikin, according to my experience feeds largely 

 on vegetable substances, berries, green shoots of grain, grasses and 

 all kinds of herbs, but it also eats insects in abundance, especially 

 grasshopper^ and the glittering Cantharids, and Jerdon says, 

 beetles, centipedes and on small lizards. H. & M. G. B. I. Ill, 

 37." 



Hodgson notes : " Stomachs full of Grylli, thin coated small 

 beetles " ? Chrysomelides " fireflies and gorgeous gad flies." It eats 

 chiefly Grylli and a few aromatic weed tops and sesamum buds. 

 H. & M. G. B. I. Ill, 37. Young brought up on grasshoppers. 

 H. & M. G. B. I. III. 39. Like other Bustards on seeds and 

 insects. F. I. IV, 200. " At times it is rather dangerous to eat 

 them owing to their fondness for feeding on the blister-fly." 

 Bombay Gaz., Swat and Broach II, 45. 



