24 THE BENGAL FLORICAN. 



along the base of the sub-Himalayas from the debouche" of the 

 Ganges to the Brahmaputra. This tract, of great extent and 

 peculiar features, is the favourite habitat of the Florican, which 

 avoids the mountains entirely, and almost, if not quite as 

 entirely, the arid and cultivated plains of the Doab, and of the 

 provinces west of the Jumna. It dwells, indeed, upon plains 

 exclusively, but never upon nude or cultivated plains. Shelter 

 of Nature's furnishing is indispensable to it, and it solely inhabits 

 wide-spreading plains, sufficiently elevated to be free from in- 

 undation, and sufficiently moist to yield a pretty copious crop 

 of grasses, but grasses not so thick nor so high as to impede 

 the movements or vision of a well-sized bird that is ever afoot 

 and always sharply on the look-out. Such extensive, well-clad, 

 yet uncultivated plains are, however, to be found only on the 

 left bank of the Ganges, and accordingly I believe that to that 

 bank the Florican is nearly confined, and to the Tarai portion 

 thereof. 



" The moults are two annually — one vernal, from March till 

 May, and the other autumnal, which is less complete and more 

 speedily got over, between August and October. The young 

 males, up to the beginning of March, entirely resemble the females, 

 but the moult then commencing gradually assimilates them 

 to the adults, which never lose, as the lesser species or Likh 

 does, after the courting season, the striking black and white garb 

 that in both species is proper to the male sex, and permanently 

 so to the larger species from and after its first year of age. The 

 young males of a year, however, have the hackles and crest less 

 developed than those graceful ornaments afterwards become. 

 There is, properly speaking, no nuptial dress in this species, 

 though the hackles and crest in their most entire fulness of 

 dimensions may be in part regarded as such." 



Mr. Blyth, I should notice, asserts that this species, like the 

 Likh, has a most distinct breeding plumage. He says* : " Mr. 

 Hodgson is also certainly mistaken in his assertion that the 

 nuptial dress is worn permanently, as we have witnessed the 

 change before described, and the subsequent partial renewal of 

 the breeding livery, which latter was not well developed in 

 captivity, and have likewise observed the fact in the skins of 

 wild specimens." 



I am in no position to decide this question, and I can only say 

 that I have certainly killed some birds in the black and white 

 livery in both January and February, though I also distinctly re- 

 member bagging many more brown than pied ones, when shoot- 

 ing during the cold season. But these may have been young birds 

 or females ; I never sexed birds in those days. Two young but 

 full grown, or nearly full grown, males before me, shot in January, 

 have the black bodies and white wings of the adult, but the 



* Contr. Ornith., 1850, 45. 



