toi liiiii puiiun ii tut 



Sypheotides aurita, Latham. 



V©rnaCXllar 1T&E1©S. — [Ker mor, Guzerat ; Tun mor, Deccan and Marathi 

 Districts; Chini mor, Belgaum ; Khartitar, B heels ; Likh, Chota Charat, 

 N. W. Provinces ; Charas, Chulla Charas, Southern India ; Kannoul, (Cana- 

 rese) ; Niala nimili, (Telugu) ; Wurragu Koli, (Tamil) ; Bursati, or Kala 

 Tugder, Rohtak, Gurgaon.} 



FIND great difficulty in defining the limits within which 

 the Lesser Florican occurs ; firstly, because it is irre- 

 gularly migratory, and secondly, because individual 

 birds straggle in the most unaccountable manner 

 hundreds of miles beyond the furthest districts which 

 it at all regularly visits. 



Dr. Jerdon tells us that " this species is found 

 throughout India, from near the foot of the Himalayas to the 

 southernmost districts ;" but this conveys, I think, a somewhat 

 erroneous idea of its distribution, which is not nearly so wide as 

 this might seem to imply. 



Although a certain number are probably permanent residents 

 of Khandesh, Nasik and Ahmednagar, the real home of the 

 Lesser Florican is in the drier portions of the Peninsula lying 

 east of the Western Ghats, and south and east of the Goda- 

 vari.* 



It is, of course, confined to plains and open country, and does 

 not ascend acy of the hills, though a single specimen was once 

 killed, I hear, on the slopes of the Nilgiris between Neddiwat- 

 tum and Pykarra, going down to the Wynad. 



During the rains when it breeds, although many breed in the 

 Deccan, as, for instance, about Sholapur, the majority, I think, 

 move northwards and westwards, extending over the western 

 parts of the Central Provinces, the Central India Agency, the 

 southern and central portions of Rajputana, Khandesh, 

 Guzerat, Cutch, Kathiawar and Southern Sindf. 



The migration is, however, irregular, as in some years it 

 extends much further than in others. The birds are plentiful in 

 one year, where in the next none or very few are to be met with. 



* Even in the winter, however, stragglers will be found far outside the limits thus 

 indicated, e.g., below the ghats in S. Canara, (Jerdon) and in Ratnagiri and Dapoli, 

 Southern Konkan (G. Vidal), in Sambalpur (one shot at Sohela, nth January), in 

 the Meerut district (two shot at Ghazi-ud-din-Nagar, in December) &c. , &c. 



t A few couple are annually shot in August, on the Moach plain, near Kurrachee, 

 and other similar localities within a circle of 20 or. 30 miles of that station. 



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