8 Lloyd's natural history. 



cles it differs in having the two middle tail-feathers much longer 

 than the rest and pointed. 



I. THE EASTERN PTN-TAILED SAND-GROUSE. PTEROCLURUS 

 ALCHATUS. 



Tetrao akhata, Linn. S. N. i. p. 276 (1766). 



Pterocles akhata, Hume and Marshall, Game Birds of India, i. 



p. 77, PL (1878). 

 Pteroclurus akhata, Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xxii. 



P- 7 (1893). 

 Adult Male.*— Lower breast and belly pure white, and the 



* It is to Mr. E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, who has for many years kept 

 Spanish specimens of the Western Pin-Tailed Sand-Grouse {P. pyrenaicus) 

 in captivity, that I owe the following remarkably interesting details re- 

 garding the seasonal changes of plumage in this species. His observa- 

 tions are based on a number of specimens kept in his aviary, one male 

 having lived for eight years, and I now find that specimens in the British 

 Museum bear out the correctness of Mr. Meade- Waldo's statements, so 

 far as one is able to judge from specimens which have only been obtained 

 during the winter months of December to February. No doubt, from the 

 absence of material, I misinterpreted the changes of plumage in the fine 

 winter series of birds in the British Museum. Many of the specimens in 

 December plumage, still retaining some barred autumn feathers on the top 

 of the head and back, and with the throat nearly, or entirely, pure white, 

 which I treated in the ' ' Catalogue of the Game-Birds " as immature males, I 

 now perceive to be in many cases adult males assuming winter plumage. 

 Again, February specimens which I regarded as younger males in a more 

 advanced stage of plumage are mostly adult males moulting into their sum- 

 mer or breeding dress. 



Mr. Meade-Waldo writes : "The seasonal changes in the plumage of 

 the males of my tame Sand-Grouse {P. pyrenaicus) take place in this man- 

 ner. At the annual complete moult in the beginning of June, when all 

 the feathers, as well as those of the wings and tail, are changed, the breed- 

 ing plumage is exchanged for one of the following pattern : the whole of 

 the back and upper-parts are replaced by feathers of a sandy-yellow with 

 black transverse bars ; the black throat and black stripe behind the eye by 

 white ; the broad chestnut belt on the breast by one much lighter in colour, 

 the black edges of which are indistinct. In this plumage the male closely 

 resembles the female, only wanting the double black bar on the throat and 

 the bluish-grey band on the feathers of the back. 



In September the back-feathers are replaced by a suit of plain olive with- 

 out cream-coloured tips. 



In December the full breeding plumage begins to appear, and is com- 

 plete by the end of January. The plain olive of the back is replaced by a 



