English: Copper engraving, with hand colour, entitled The CURMOOR or FLORICAN one of the highest flavoured Birds in India (the Lesser Florican Sypheotides indicus)

Date: 1813

Description: Plate fifty-two from the second volume of James Forbes' "Oriental Memoirs". During Forbes'(1749-1819)residence in Brauch as Collector, he often went out on sporting excursions with the English Chief in the neighbouring districts. However he wrote: 'not that I had any pleasure in those diversions' but that his tent was pitched in 'unfrequented forests and savage tracts, little known to Europeans'. Since a sporting camp was formed during the first year of his residence at Bharuch, Forbes had an opportunity to explore the rich wildlife of Turcaseer, a ruined town but 'once populous and cultivated'. Here, the 'woods and forests abounded with tigers, hyenas, wolves, ...and a variety of small game' including the floriken, a much hunted bird of the Bustard family. 'The Florican, or Curmoor, exceeds...