JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1847. 



. On the Charj, or Otis Bengalensis. By B. H. Hodgson, Esq. 



Family STRUTHIONIDiE VEL OTID.E. 



Sub-family Otin^e. 



Genus Eupodotis. 



Species bengalensis vel deliciosa vel himalayana, 



Charj and Dabar of Hindusthan and Bengal. 



Greater Florican of British Sportsmen. 



Habitat. The Tarai. 

 Of all Indian game birds the most striking to the eye and the most 

 grateful to the palate is the Charj or Dabar. Latham introduced it 

 to the scientific world above half a century back ; and yet so little had 

 been added in the interim to his crude knowledge of its real character 

 and habits that Mr. Vigors could recently suppose it an inhabitant, or 

 at least visitant of the sub-Himalayas ;* nor am I aware that any one 

 has to this hour undertaken to give intelligible body and shape to the 

 mere scientific shadow of a species delineated by Latham. As the 

 Charj is found more abundantly in the Tarai than elsewhere, and as I 

 happen to possess a tolerably accurate knowledge of its structure and 

 habits, (the latter very difficultly procurable,) I purpose to present to 

 the Society in the following paper the substance of my information 

 respecting this most elegant and high-flavoured bird, which our own 

 sportsmen with the gun, and native chiefs and Princes with the Baz,f 



* Gould's Century, where is a very bad figure, 

 t Astur palumbarious faem, Goshawk.— Male is Jurra, 

 No. IX. New Series. 5 y 



