SENEGAL SAND-GROUSE 95 



that information there has been each winter a 

 regular invasion of British and other ardent sports- 

 men, to each of the places named, to have "a 

 little Sand-grouse shooting." Result : at those 

 places there are now none whatever, and no one 

 living there seems to know anything more about 

 Sand-grouse than that annually large numbers of 

 men come with shooting equipment ready to make 

 record bags, and go away without firing a shot. 

 This being so, the present author thinks it best 

 not to give localities, for though there is no 

 danger of Sand-grouse ever being exterminated, as 

 if persecuted they have the whole of these great 

 African deserts to fall back and back upon, yet the 

 hunger of the modern man to go out and kill 

 something bearing the least resemblance to a game- 

 bird is such, that if it were told that at certain 

 places near the river they could be got, in a single 

 season or two that place would be absolutely 

 cleared. It seems rather churlish perhaps, but 

 this book is not written to aid men to shoot 

 Egyptian birds, but simply to recognise the 

 birds seen ; and the first essential is that there 

 should be birds to see. Sand-grouse seem to be 

 pleasant sociable birds, happy in their family life ; 

 at the non-breeding season they foregather into 



