300 PTEROCLID. 
secondaries hair-brown ; tertiaries vinous on their inner webs and 
edged on the outer with buffish ; scapulars vinous at the base, 
dark shafted with a subterminal dark band, and mesially tipped 
with a nearly oval butf spot; median wing-coverts the same, 
the greater series greyish-buff or buffy-isabelline; abdomen, 
flanks, under wing-coverts, vent, and lower tail-coverts, white, 
slightly soiled on the middle of the abdomen, and in some speci- 
mens a pale isabelline ; tarsal plumes white. 
The female has the throat and sides of the neck orange-buff ; 
the chin paler and nearly albescent; the crown very pale 
cinnamon ; entire upper-surface buff, with, im some specimens, 
a vinous tinge and barred with numerous crescentic and broken 
bands of dark brown ; breast and under parts paler buff, also with 
crescentic bands ; the flanks albescent ; scapulars largely blotched 
with dusky and with buff tips ; primaries and secondaries as in the 
male, but very pale, or hair-brown. 
It is only on the confines of Sind that the Coronetted Sand 
Grouse has been procured and that but rarely. It is of course 
only a cold weather visitant, but further north in Southern 
Afghanistan I was so fortunate as to procure two batches of 
eggs. They measured 1°63 inches in length by 107 in 
breadth. 
Pterocles exustus, Tem. 
802.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 502; Butler, Guzerat ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IV, p. 4; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, 
p- 421; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 210; Game 
Birds of India, Vol I, p. 69 ; Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India ; 
Ibis, 1885, p. 131. 
THE CoMMON SAND GROUSE. 
Length, 11 to 13°75 ; expanse, 21 to 22°5; wing, 6:5 to 75; 
tail, 4 to 59; tarsus, 0°8 to 1; bill from gape, 0°6 to 0°7 ; weight, 
74 to 10 oz. 
Bill pale slaty-grey to pale plumbeous or lavender-blue ; irides 
dark brown ; feet same as bill. 
Male, general colour fulvous-isabelline, brighter and more 
yellow about the lores, face, and chin, and mixed with dusky- 
greenish on the back, wing and upper tail-coverts ; primaries 
black, the tips of all, except the first three, white, broader on 
the inner web; a longitudinal median line on the wing, formed 
by some of the coverts and secondaries being brighter buff; 
tail with the central pair of feathers elongated and _ highly 
_ attenuated, isabelline-yellow, the lateral feathers deep brown ; 
edged and tipped with pale fulvous; a narrow black band on the 
breast ; abdomen deep chocolate brown (burnt or singed 
color, hence exustus), paling on the vent, as are the -tarsal 
plumes. ‘ 
The female has the whole upper plumage, including the tail 
feathers (except a plain bar un the wing formed by the greater- 
