Fi'EKOCLES INLUCUS 263 



once dropped three birds out of four and several times two out of 

 four and this without in any way being guilty of "browning." 



The Painted Sand-Grouse appears to be almost exclusively a 

 vegetarian, and the crops of those examined by Hume and others 

 have so far contained practically nothing but grain and seeds of 

 various kinds. They seem also, to keep very much to a hard diet, and 

 only one or two of my correspondents mention their indulging 

 in green-food, though they undoubtedly do eat such sometimes. 

 They certainly eat termites — but squirrels even, as well as doves 

 and similar vegetarian feeders, will all tackle and swallow these with 

 greediness — and one correspondent says that he found them feeding 

 on ants. Probably they eat small insects fairly regularly as they 

 come across them, though they may not go out of their way to hunt 

 for them when grain is handy. 



Captain Heaviside records a curious habit he observed in these 

 birds in the Nerbudda Valley, where he noticed them " in the 

 evenings on the cart-tracks, where they were probably dusting them- 

 selves as there is no grain-trafhc on these roads." 



Mr. G. O. Allen describes another very curious habit of this 



sand-grouse : — 



" I was taken this evening by a friend of mine to a small spot 

 well-known to him about twenty miles South of Mirzapur, where 

 the Painted Sand-Grouse came and scratched in the evening. It is 

 a small bit of ground about thirty feet long entirely bared of green 

 by these ' Painters ' wliich come and scratch there at dusk, the earth 

 presumably having some peculiar attraction. The birds come in 

 large numbers just at sunset and the same place is apparently used 

 year after year. They must come from far off as I have never hoard 

 of any of these birds being shot within ten miles or so of the place." 



These Sand-Grouse suffer to a certain extent from snarers and 

 bird-catchers, but owing to their habits and to the fact of their not 

 going about in large flocks, they do not fall victims to anything like 

 the extent that P. orientalis and P. senegalensis erlangeri do. Adams 

 says that " large numbers of the Painted Grouse are taken during 

 the rainy season by bird-catchers, who, approaching under cover of a 

 screen made of green leaves and twigs, drop a circular net, suspended 

 to a hoop and held out horizontally at the end of a long bamboo, over 

 the birds, which as a rule never seem to suspect that danger is at 

 hand." 



