SENEGAL SAND-GROUSE 97 



heard would never be forgotten, and it has, as all 

 Nature's notes have, an entire suitability to the 

 surroundings, and like the boundless, yellow, dry, 

 herbless desert it is wild and weird, yet beautiful. 



I remember once a quite intelligent Scotch 

 keeper answering an inquiry, as to what Ptarmi- 

 gan found to eat amongst the barren hill- 

 tops where they live with the amazing statement, 

 delivered in the most solemn manner, " that they 

 just lived on the little stones," and when doubt 

 was thrown on his information, declared that he had 

 often cut them open to see, and had never found 

 anything in their crops "but just the wee stones." 

 And the inquiry might well be made as to the 

 source of food of the Sand-grouse when one sees a 

 large flock in the desert places that they love to be 

 in during the day, if one did not know of their 

 wondrous powers of flight, which make nothing of 

 flying scores of miles to the far-distant edges of 

 cultivated ground. 



I have watched Sand-grouse quite close at hand, 

 and when on the ground they are rather dumpy- 

 shaped and uninteresting; if disturbed, they pull 

 themselves together a bit and run off to a short 

 distance, and settle down again in a crouching 

 position ; if again disturbed they probably rise 



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