TIBETAN SAND-GROUSE 157 



which it shows more activity in getting about than one would 

 expect in such a very short-legged bird — it is quite the squattiest 

 in ^ the game-list. Flocks of hundreds often occur, but in 

 summer these break up into little groups. They are very hard 

 to see when basking in the sun at midday, owing to their 

 plumage being so like the sand, and make a prodigious noise as 

 they get up suddenly, and rather surprisingly; for at such times 

 they lie very close, and in spite of their fast and powerful flight, 

 do not go far, and may be marked down and flushed again and 

 again. 



In the mornings and evenings they are apt to be much 

 more shy, and to take alarm at a hundred yards' distance. 

 The drinking- times — two in the twenty-four hours, as usual with 

 sand-grouse — are in the very early morning and quite at dusk. 

 The birds are generally near water, and will drink brackish if 

 they cannot get fresh. They are noisy birds when on the move, 

 and their characteristic double cluck can be heard at night as 

 well as by day. 



The eggs have never been taken within British limits, and 

 in fact till within quite recent years were not known at all. 

 However, there are in the British Museum collection a couple 

 taken on the Pamir, and presented by Mr. St. George Littledale, 

 which are described in the Museum Catalogue of Birds' Eggs as 

 follows : — 



" The eggs of the Tibetan three-toed sand-grouse in the 

 collection are of a pale creamy-buff colour. Both the shell- 

 markings and the surface-markings are small, and the latter 

 consist entirely of spots of dull reddish-brown evenly distributed 

 over the whole shell. Two examples measure respectively 

 1-9 X 1-37 : 2 x 1-33." 



