PTEEOCLES. 361 



Order GRALL^E. 



Family PTEROCLID^E. 



Pterocles exustus, Temm. The Common Sand-Grouse. 



Pterocles exustus, Temm., Jerd. B. Ind. ii. p. 502 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft X. $ E. no. 802. 



The Common Sand-Grouse breeds throughout the drier and barer 

 portions of the more or less sandy plains of the continent of India. 

 Rocks and hills, forests and swamps, it equally eschews, and the 

 haunts it best loves, and where its nests may be found in greatest 

 numbers, are scattered fallow or stubble, or newly-ploughed fields, 

 dotted about on and surrounded by large semi-desert plains. As 

 to the breeding-season I hardly know what to say. I have found 

 their eggs almost every month of the year in one place or another, 

 but iu the Xorth-West Provinces the majority probably lay from 

 April to June. 



Further west and north, where the rainfall is very scanty, they 

 must, I think, have two or more broods in the year. 



Khan Xizam-oo-deen, Khan Bahadoor, the well-known Punjab 

 sportsman, who has collected for me for so many years, always 

 kept up a register, showing from day to day the various birds and 

 eggs obtained, the localities in which found, &c., and this he always 

 sent me with each batch of skins and eggs. 



From his registers for 1869 and 1870 I find that he took nests 

 of this present species on the subjoined dates in each year : this 

 was at Urneewalla, some fifteen miles east of Fazilka in the Sirsa 

 District. 



1869. 1870. 



January 



February ... 3rd, 24th. 



March 1st, 4th, 12th, 21st. 



April 21st, 22nd, 27th, 28th. 



Alay 8tb,25th. 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 15th, 28th. 



June 16th, 17th, 30th. llth, loth, 21st, 30th. 



July 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th, llth, 12th. 23rd. 



August 



September 

 October ... 

 November 

 December 



.. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 10th. 



3rd, 22nd. 

 24th. 

 7th, 20th. 



In some cases three nests were found in a single day. During 

 these two years he sent me so many eggs that I begged him to 

 collect no more, and so after 1870 these eggs are never mentioned. 



