36 T H E L E S S E R F L O R I C A N OR L I K H.
" T h e largest bag I ever knew of was one often couple
shot by four guns in the Eklagan Kuran, near Dharangaon, in
Khandcsh.
" Pardis, the professional poachers* of the Deccan, snare
them along with Partridges and Quail, simply by setting a
rope of snares down the grassy bank of a dry nalla and then
beating the bushes.
" It is perfectly true that sometimes the effects caused by eating
Florican's flesh after they have been feeding on blisterflies are
most painful and disagreeable. I myself have suffered from this
cause."
As a bird for the table (setting aside exceptional cases like
this), they vary very much ; they are never to be compared,
I think, to a fine Bengal Florican, and I have often found them
dry and hard, much like a Blue Pigeon.
Mr. Davidson says :—•" Florican are found sparingly in Mysore,
but I only saw one on two occasions in the Tumkur district,
during last year. It is a migrant during the rains to
Western Guzerat, where it is remorselessly shot dozvu zvliile breeding,
but apparently avoids the Panch Mahals almost entirely ;
at least only one specimen has been secured there during the
last few years.
" They are ordinarily shot in the Deccan in the long grass
bhirs, being flushed by a line of beaters, the guns walking
along with the beaters. In the breeding season the cocks are
sometimes shot in the following way :—In the early morning
the gunner, for one can hardly call him a sportsman, goes to a
bhir, where he knows there are birds, and waits tell he sees one
jump up in the grass and cry. He then stalks within 50 or
60 yards, and again waits till the bird jumps and then runs
as fast as he can towards the spot. The bird generally rises
30 or 40 yards off, and there is a fair amount of excitement, if
not of sport, in shooting them this way."
Dr. Jerdonsays:—"I have found the cock bird commencing
to assume the black plumage at the end of April, and have killed
them with the black ear-tuft just beginning to sprout, hardly
any other black feathers having appeared. In other instances,
I have noticed that these ear-tufts did not make their appearance
till the bird was quite mottled with black. The full and perfect
breeding plumage is generally completed during July and
August. At this season the male bird generally takes up a
position on some rising ground (from which it wanders but
little for many days even), and during the morning specially,
but in cloudy weather at all times of the day, every now and then
rises a few feet perpendicularly into the air, uttering at the same
time a peculiar croaking call, more like that of a frog or cricket
than that of a bird, and then drops down again. This is probably
* Not half such bad poachers, I submit, as the English gentlemen who slaughter
game birds, male and female, in the middle of the breeding season.
T H E L E S S E R F L O R I C A N OR L I K H. 37
intended to attract the females, who, before their eggs are laid,
wander greatly, or perhaps to summon a rival cock ; for I have
seen two in such desperate fight as to allow me to approach
within thirty yards before they ceased their battle."
I note that at all times, when alarmed, they seem to utter
this croak, which somewhat reminds one of that of the corn
crake, but not in so deep a tone as when nautching. Some
sportsmen have fancied that the upward spring of male birds
(and though I have seen females jump, the spring has not thesame
character as when the males do it) is made in pursuit of flies,
but (as was remarked by Mr. Davidson, C.S.) I have no doubt
that it is part of the regular nuptial performance.
He says:—•" The Florican breeds all round Sholapur, in considerable
numbers, wherever there are grass preserves with long
grass. During the breeding season they seem chiefly to haunt the
thinnest patches of long grass, rather than those full of small
bushes ; they are at this period exceedingly difficult to flush,
particularly the hens, which, even if you succeed in forcing them
to rise, get up only at your very feet and make but very short
flights. The cocks are not quite so difficult to flush, but you are
obliged to run towards them, to get even them up : if you
simply walk after them, they will rarely rise. Their whereabouts
are, however, generally easily discovered by their frog-like call,
and their occasional sudden jumps up into the air. They do
not seem to call much when the sun is bright, but chiefly in the
morning and during cloudy days. I have often watched them
flying or jumping up, but I am still uncertain why they do it.
My original impression was, that they sprung up to seize
insects from the grass stalks, but I have long abandoned this
idea, as they rise much above the grass. Moreover, I have only
seen one bird thus rise that could have been a female, and this
was dark-coloured, and probably a male that had not assumed
breeding plumage, and I am inclined to consider these sudden
flights as simply one of those bridal displays so common in the
males, especially of gallinaceous birds, such as the flapping of the
wings in Pheasants, the nautch of the Peacock, the lek of the
Capercailzie, and the pouch-inflated strut of the big Bustard,
and if it can be certainly established that this habit is confined
to the males,* no alternative solution seems open to us."
The Lesser Florican, according to my experience, feeds
largely on vegetable substances, berries, green shoots of grain,
grasses, and all kinds of herbs, but it also eats insects in abundance,
especially grasshoppers and the glittering cantharides,
and, Jerdon says,t beetles, centipedes and even small lizards.
* And let me add, the males in the breeding season, which I believe to be the fact.
t Hodgson notes : " Stomachs full of grylli, thin coated small beetles, fireflies,
and gorgeous gadflies. Comes" (into the Nepal Valley) " when the wheat
ripens in April and May ; leaves in the heavy lain in July, when the valley is flooded
It resides in the ripe corn and green, dry or hill" (*'. e., non-irrigated) " r i c e . It
eats chiefly grylli and a few aromatic weed tops and sesamum buds."