PTEROCLES INDICUS 261 



become hot and sometimes also, at least in the case of P. exustus, 

 a couple of hours ov so before sunset. P. fasciatus, on the contrary, 

 always drinks at dusk, never in my experience before the sun is well 

 below the horizon. 



"It is a much more silent bird than P. cxustus and, unlike 

 the latter, it flies always within a few feet of the ground, so that it 

 rarely shows up against the sky line and is not too easy a bird to 

 shoot in the fading twilight. It does not, however, take as much 

 killing as its notoriously tough relative, falling, when hit, to smaller 

 shot at greater distance. 



On one occasion, wlien I was sitting up for a panther near a 

 pool in a river bed, in the north of tlie Main Kantha Agency, the 

 Painted Sand-Grouse kept coming to drink in the gathering dusk in 

 small parties until there were, at a rough estimate, about 150 birds 

 collected at the water's edge in a patch of some thirty yards in 

 length. This is the only time I have seen so large a number 

 together, and quite a noise they made with their chattering, both as 

 they arrived and on the ground before drinking. The single note, 

 softer and lower than that of the Common Sand-Grouse, I have 

 never heard except at dusk. When they alight on the ground tliey 

 drop very suddenly and then squat like a nightjar. 



Although I have never personally seen this Sand-Grouse drink 

 except at dusk, it is not impossible that, in the hot weather, it may 

 also sometimes drink at dawn heiove the sun is up. I have more 

 than once seen it on the wing at this time of the day." 



Hume mentions the fact of their drinkin"^ m the morning and 

 Blanford also says that they fly to water before sunrise and after 

 sunset, but neither of these writers gives any further details as to 

 their watering m the early dawn. 



Adams, as quoted by Hume, gives a rather similar account of 

 the visit of these birds to a small pond in an acacia grove, and in 

 this says that his attention was first drawn to the birds by the 

 "peculiar cluch, cluch, which fasciatus makes when rising." He also 

 adds that on alighting, the birds " lay perfectly still for two or three 

 seconds and then all of them commenced a rapid run down to the 

 water." 



Adams also states that "the Painted Sand-Grouse entirely leave 

 the forests and jungle in the early part of the rainy season and 

 then live in the open country, all through the rains, exactly as 

 P. cms I us does." 



Although distributed over a very wide area and comparatively 



