10 NOTES ON THE AVIFAUNA OF MOUNT ABOO 
839.—Sypheotides aurita, Lath. 
The Lesser Florican is not uncommon during the rains. It 
arrives about the beginning of July and lays in August. In 
the neighbourhood of Deesa although sometimes as many as 
seven or eight are killed by one party in a day, still four 
or five is considered a good bag. When they first arrive 
on account of the scarcity of covert, they are very wild and 
difficult to approach if you advance direct towards them, but 
by walking away from them, when you find them out in the 
open, first of all and then gradually circling in towards them, 
especially if there are two guns and each goes a different way, 
you can almost always get within shot of them as they squat, 
even on a bare fallow, when they see that they are surrounded, 
and allow you often to walk up to within a few yards of them 
before they rise. This plan answers equally well with Hou- 
bara, Grey Partridges, Sandgrouse, Plovers and many other 
species of birds that are difficult to approach. If you are 
shooting alone it is best to send your shikari one way and to 
go the other yourself, the shikari taking care when circling in 
not to approach too near the spot where the bird is lying 
(7. e., within 50 or 60 yards), otherwise it may get up before 
you are within gun shot. As soon as you find that you are 
within shot, you should incline quickly towards the bird so as 
to flush him, and you will almost invariably get a fair shot, as 
the bird, seeing the shikari upon one side and you upon the 
other, trusts rather to escaping by concealment than by flight. 
T have often made a good bag of Grey Partridges in a day 
by circumventing them in this way, when, from the open 
nature of the country, it would have been useless to have 
attempted walking them up in line. 
[Common throughout the entire region during the rainy 
season. ‘They migrate hither from the central table-lands of 
the peninsular, where they spend the cold and dry season.— 
AO), EL 
840.—Cursorius coromandelicus, Gel. : 
The Indian Courier Plover is common all over the plains in 
the cold weather. It frequents open sandy plains and bare 
cultivated or uncultivated ground. 
I believe it migrates, as I have not observed it in this 
part of the country, during the hot weather, but after about 
the 20th September it appears all over the country plentifully. 
[Oceurs in all the sub-divisions of the region, but in the 
northern parts of Sindh and the greater portion of Jodhpoor is 
entirely replaced by the next species. In Cutch it is rare, but 
