THE THREE-TOED SAND-GROUSE 211 
grain or interferes with the occupation of the gleaner. It is also 
very partial to vetches. I have met with an instance where a 
Turtle Dove paid daily visits to one particular spot, under a hedge 
in a field, and though fired at by the owner of the field many times, 
under the idea that it was a rare bird, it soon returned; and when 
at last shot, its crop was found to be full of vetch seeds which had 
been accidentally spilled from a bag. 
The Turtle Dove is smaller than any of the other British Doves. 
When flying, it seems scarcely larger than a Missel Thrush; but 
it is more slender in shape, and its wings are much longer. It beats 
its wings, too, more rapidly, and moves through the air with greater 
velocity. The tints of its plumage are more varied than in the 
other British species, but far inferior in brilliancy to many foreign 
ones. 
The Turtle Dove so frequently kept in a cage is the Collared 
Turtle Dove (Columba risoria), a native of India and China. This 
species is distinguished by a black crescent on the back of the neck, 
the horns of which nearly meet in front. Turtle Doves are much 
kept in Germany, owing to a strange popular superstition that 
they are more predisposed than the human species to nervous 
disorders and rheumatism, and that when any of these complaints 
visit a house, they fall on the birds rather than on their owners. 
ORDER PTEROCLETES 
FAMILY PTEROCLIDA 
THE THREE-TOED SAND-GROUSE 
Legs and toes feathered to the claws; no hind toe. Length sixteen to 
twenty inches. 
THIS species was not known with us till 1859. Great flights visited 
this country in 1863, in 1888, and in 1889 when a few pair breed 
here. 
