904 PTEROCLID#. 
articulated above the plane of the anterior toes, wanting in a 
few; nails strong, blunt, and but slightly curved. 
Fammy, Pteroclides. - 
Bill somewhat slender and compressed ; wings lengthened and 
pointed ; tarsus short, more or less plumed; feet. short ; hind-toe 
rudimentary or wanting; tail of sixteen feathers. 
Genus, Pterocles, Zemm. 
Bill small, slightly arched, the sides compressed ; nostrils basal 
almost concealed by the frontal plumes ; wings long and pointed ; 
the first and second quills longest; tail moderate, wedge-shaped 
or rcunded ; the central feathers often lengthened ; tarsi feathered 
in front, reticulated posteriorly ; the anterior toes bare, united at 
their base by membrane; hind-toe minute, raised; the claws 
short, stout, very slightly curved. 
Pterocles arenarius, Pall. 
799.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. IE, p. 496; Butler, Guzerat ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IV, p. 4; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of 
Sind, p. 209; Game Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 47; Swinhoe and 
Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 131. 
THE LARGE SAND GROUSE. 
Length, 13°25 to 14°75 ; expanse, 27 to 30; wing, 9 to 10; tail, 
4 to 5; tarsus, 1 to 1:25; bill from gape, 0°6 to 0°7 ; weight, 15 oz. 
to 14 lbs. 
Bill ‘pale bluish-grey to dark plumbeous; irides brown; feet 
earthy-grey to dark greyish plumbeous. 
Male, crown and middle of the nape brownish-grey with a 
pinkish tinge ; rest of the upper parts mingled ashy and fulvous, 
each feather being bluish-ashy in the middle, edged with fulvous, 
giving a mottled appearance ; greater wing-coverts plain ochreous 
or orange-buff, and the median-coverts also broadly edged with 
the same; quills and primary-coverts dark slaty, with black 
shafts; tail as the back, fulvous with black ashy bands; 
all the lateral tail-feathers tipped with white; beneath, the 
chin is deep chesnut, passing as a band under the ear-coverts 
to the nape, and below this, on the middle of the throat, is 
a small triangular patch of black; the breast and sides of 
the neck dull ashy, tinged with fulvous, with a narrow band 
of black on the breast ; abdomen and vent deep black ; under tail- 
coverts black, with white margins to the feathers ; tarsal plumes 
pale yellowish. 
The female differs in having the whole head and upper parts 
with the breast fulvous, banded with brown; the pectoral band 
is narrower, and between that and the black of the abdomen is 
unspotted ; the chin is fulvous, with a narrow black edging and a 
few black specks ; the under tail-coverts pale fulvous, 
