1126 JOUENAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



In every case the eggs had been laid on the ground in small 

 bare patches in the centre of fields of sungrass, or tdoo grass, these 

 being generally of considerable extent, seldom near any village or 

 habitation, and most often surrounded b}^ dense forests or cane 

 jungle. 



The eggs are exceptionally difficult to find owing both to the 

 great extent of country one has to cover and to the natural cuteness 

 of the hen bird. Unless taken absolutely unawares by the 

 searcher she never rises direct from her nesting place when 

 disturbed but creeps through the grass until she has got a consider- 

 able distance from it, after which she rises and flies straight 

 away. Thus, one can never hope to find the eggs within fifty 

 yards of where she is flushed and often the}^ may be 200 yards 

 from this spot. She exhibits the same care in approaching her 

 eggs, alighting a hundred yards away and M^alking through the 

 jungle up to them. Fortunately, the bird when disturbed, 

 generally makes off in a bee line from the object disturbing her so 

 that the &gg collector, marking the spot Avhence she rises 

 generally finds the eggs by woi'king back in a straight line to- 

 wards the direction whence he has come. 



An Indian friend who was so kind as to look after my collectors 

 for me and to collate notes on their breeding habits wrote to me 

 as follows about the breeding habits of this bustard ; "A Florican 

 lays only two eggs a year in the breeding season ('April and 

 May). Dense forests infested with ferocious animals, scarcely trodden 

 by men, are the places where eggs are laid on the ground. The 

 bird takes great precaution to conceal her eggs, and you can hardly 

 find any eggs within a quarter of a mile from the place where a 

 Florican is seen. She creeps through the forest unobserved to a 

 great distance to lay her eggs. A very careful and extensive 

 search is required to discover them. " 



Nest there is none, and the eggs are merely laid in some natural 

 depression under shelter of a tussock of grass. Where there is no 

 such convenient hollow the bird scratches one in the soil or lays 

 them on the ground without taking even this much trouble. 



The number laid is almost invariably two, though sometimes a 

 single egg may be incubated. It is practically certain that neither 



