1 1 1 §mmi f
Sypheotis bengalensis, P. L. S. Mailer.
Vernacular NamOS.-[Charas, Charat, Charj, N. W. Provinces Oudh, &c,
DabaT Nepal Tarai ; male Ablac, female Bor, m many farts of the Tarai ;
Ooloo Moora, Ooloo Moira, Assam.}
' H E Bengal Florican is almost confined to Eastern
Bengal,* the valley of Assam, the Bhutan Duars,
and those portions of Bengal, Oudh, and the North-
Western Provinces lying north of the Ganges. Jerdon
says that it spreads through the valley of the
Jumna into Rajputana, the Cis-Sutlej States, and
parts of the Punjab ; but this is wrong. It is the
Houbara that is found in these localities, not the Bengal Florican ;
but sportsmen constantly call the Houbara the Florican, and
hence the mistake. I have never seen the true Florican anywhere
west of the Kadar of the Ganges, except as a rare
straggler in the Dun ; and there again it does not, to the best
of my belief, extend further west than the Kadar of the Jumna.
In Meerut I have killed both the Houbara and the Likh, but
it is only when you get quite down into the Kadar of the
Ganges at Hastinapur and Makhdumpur, or again southwards
below Garhmuktesar, that you meet the true F'lorican, and here
we used to pick up a few couples every cold season.
This species has been recorded from Tipperah and Sylhet,
but Captain Williamson tells me he has never seen it in
the latter, and both he and Mr. Inglis say the same as regards
Cachar.
This Florican is essentially Indian, and extends, so far as we
know, nowhere beyond the limits of the empire. It is possible,
however, that it may hereafter be found to occur in the country
immediately east of Assam.
MR. HODGSON'S monograph of this species still continues the
most exhaustive account we have of it, and from it I reproduce,
with slight alterations, the following :—
" Tarai is an Indian term equivalent to Pays Bas, Landes,
Marches, and Marshes, of European tongues; and the name
Tarai is applied, par excellence, to a low-lying, moist and rarely
redeemed tract of level waste, extending outside the Sal forest
* It is found, however, occasionally as far west as Nuddea at any rate.