310 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



The colours of the soft parts are the same as in the male. 



Measurements. Females. — " Length 1'2'4 to 13'1 inches ; expanse 

 22'0 to 22'6 ; tail from vent 4 to 4"6 ; the central tail-feathers only 

 extending from 0'75 to 1'2 beyond the rest; wing 7'3 to 7'5 ; hill 

 at front 0'4 to 0-44. Weight 8 to 9 ozs." (Hume.) 



Wing 696 inches (= 176-7 mm.) to 7-75 (= 1967 mm.) with 

 an average of 7"35 (= 186'5 mm.). 



From the above it will be seen that I make the difference 

 between the male and female rather greater than Hume does as 

 regards wing-measurements. The tarsus and bill average respect- 

 ively '90 inches (= 22"8 mm.), and '43 (= 10'8 mm.). 



So far we have no description either of the young bird or of 

 the nestling. 



Distribution. — The Spotted Sand-Grouse, Pteroclurus senegallus, 

 extends from Algeria, where, Whitaker says it is very common, 

 throughout the whole of Northern Africa, parts of the Sahara, 

 North and South Nubia and Egypt, and thence through Arabia, 

 Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia, Afghanistan, Beluchistan, and into 

 North-west India. 



It has also been killed on one occasion in Europe, Mr. J. 0. S. 

 Whitaker having obtained a single specimen at Syracuse on the 

 28th April, 1910. 



Within our limits Blanford thus defines its habitat: — "Common 

 in Sind west of the Indus, rare to the eastward, but recorded from 

 the neighbourhood of the Eunn of Cutch, including Kathiawar, and 

 from Jamboghora, west of Ahmedabad ; also from Poharan between 

 Jeysulmere and Jodhpore, and from Shapur district in the Punjab. 

 Mhow is given as a locality in the British Museum Catalogue for 

 a specimen received from Colonel Swinhoe, but in error, for the 

 specimen thus marked is really from Pirchoki, below the Bolan Pass." 

 As regards Kathiawar, Colonel L. L. Fenton tells me that he has 

 only seen a very few of these birds, and that only in the cold weather 

 in the north-east of the Province. He has met with them north 

 of the Tabli Eoad station in the Wadhwan-Ahmedabad railway, 

 though they were not common. Harrington Bulkley, writing to the 

 Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society from Kharaghora, 

 says that " they are found in numbers all along the Kunn, 100 miles 

 north of this." 



