RESTING l\ WESTERN ISDU. 



An egg, said to belong to L'tcrocle* urenaritis (the Black-bellied 

 Sand Grouse), but which Mr. Hume believes to really belong to 

 Pterocles alchata, was found at this place. He says :— " It is decidedly 

 r shorter egg, it has much less gloss, the ground colour is a pale cafe- 

 an-lait, the markings are of the same colours as on the other egg, bul 

 thev are more thinlv set, and the bulk of them much smaller ; but 

 then there are a couple of great large splashes of both the yellow- 

 ish-brown and the purplish-grey, which far excel in size anything 

 on the other egg. This egg measures only 1*7 by 1°2." 



Undoubted egg* of the White-bellied Sand Grouse, which have 

 been sent me from Persia, are larger than any I have seen of arenarim, 

 measuring from 1'9 to rather more than 2*0 inches in length, and 

 from 1 -2 to 1 '3 in breadth ; in colour they are glossy pinkish-white, 

 or pale salmon, and they are thickly and boldly spotted and blotched 

 with bright reddish-brown and faint inky-purple. 



They are very different eggs to those of arenarius, which are of the 

 exHslux type, while the present ones assimilate to that oifasci<Uus, 



■■I/;/*.— THE SPOTTED SAND GROUSE, 

 Pier/odes senegaliis, Lin, 



The Spotted Sand Grouse is not very common in Sind, and become* 

 more rare further south, and i« only a mere straggler in Guzera* 

 and Kajputana. All I can find on record regarding its nidification 

 is contained in the following extract : — 



"Nothing has ever been, recorded of their nidification, but some, 

 at any rate, do breed in Siud, as I possess an egg taken there. 



" This single egg* I owe to Mr. William Blanford, who extracted 

 it from the body of a female, which he shot on the 20th March, 1875, 

 in the desert west of Shikarpur, Upper Sincl. Tn shape and size 

 the egg is similar to that of exuslus, but the markings are much 

 more sparse than in any egg of that species I have ever seen, The 

 egg is, of course, cylindro-ovoidal ; the ground colour is pale 

 yellowish-stone, and the markings, which are thinly distributed 

 over the surface of the egg, consist of olive-brown spots and tiny 

 blotches, with a few crooked and hooked lines : besides these a few 



* This egg is figured in the third plate of Eggs,. Vol. III., Hume and Marshall'* 

 Game Brrds nf Iv.d> 



