PTEROCLUBUS ALCHATUS CAUDACUTUS 289 



had no luck and never saw them drinking as Meade-Waldo describes. 

 On the other hand, I have succeeded in rearing a large number of 

 the chicks and I found them to be very thirsty little creatures, 

 drinking greedily more than once in the day when tliey got the 

 chance. I have watched this Sand-Grouse drinking in their 

 thousands in June and July, and I have noticed that the birds go 

 right out into the water and thoroughly soak the wliole of their body 

 plumage underneatli so much so that it is perfectly noticeable when 

 the birds are on the wing flying back from watering, as their breasts 

 and bodies are bedraggled and muddy. It would seem therefore that 

 their habits here agree in this respect with those in Africa." 



Colonel Magrath found that these birds when drinking sometimes 

 actually settled on the water — and he says that a pair so settled on the 

 Tigris right in front of him. He remarks that " when on the water 

 they floated high and looked like gulls." This curious habit was also 

 noticed by Captain Thornhill in Mesopotamia. 



In the ' Avicultural Magazine ' for February, 1910, Mr. Meade- 

 Waldo describes how he kept a female bird of this species in con- 

 finement for seventeen years, so that she must have been at least 

 eighteen years old at the time of her death. She bred regularly 

 year after year from 1893 to 1906, and generally succeeded in 

 bringing up her young. Mr. Meade-Waldo tells us that with 

 other food, he gave her as much hemp-seed and maw-seed as she 

 liked, and that the latter was her favourite food. 



This bird occurs in enormous numbers over the greater part of 

 Mesopotamia, but it wanders backwards and forwards from one area 

 to another in the most extraordinary manner, and it is really most 

 difficult to say exactly what factors govern these local migrations. 

 Captain C. E. S. Pitman, who has compiled some most interesting 

 notes for me, thinks that food and rainfall are the two dominating 

 reasons for these movements, but can lay down no definite rules 

 about them. 



His notes are as follows : — 



" When I returned to Mesopotamia at the end of 191G, I again 

 saw these birds during the voyage up-stream directly we had passed 

 Amarah. We had one or two small shoots on the way up to 

 Sheikhsaad, and each morning and afternoon any quantity of the 

 birds used to water from the sand-banks in the river. On 6th 

 November 1 arrived back in the ai'ea twelve to fourteen miles north - 

 19 



