528 PTEROCLID/E. 



and rufous and finely barred with black ; lower breast and abdominal region 

 finely barred with blackish and creamy or fulvous white ; bill red j irides 

 dark brown ; feet dull yellow. 



Length. 10 inches; wing 7; tail 3*25; tarsus ri. 



Hal. The greater part of India, except in the very moist countries. It is 

 recorded from the Deccan, Carnatic and Central India, also from Sind, Punjab, 

 and the N.-W. Provinces, and from Delhi to Mount Aboo in Guzerat, 

 Jodhpore, and Sambhur. Affects the low ranges of rocky and more or less 

 barren hills. They breed almost everywhere they occur, making a depression 

 in the soil and laying 2 3 eggs, a delicate pinkish fawn or pale salmon 

 colour, here and there finely speckled, spotted and streaked with brownish red 

 and numerous spots of pale pinky purple underlying as if it were the primary 

 marking. In shape and markings the eggs vary a good deal. In length they 

 vary from 1*3 to r62, and in breadth from 0^93 to 1-05. 



Gen. Syrrhaptes Lin. 



Feet smaller than in Pterocles, and feathered to the claws ; hind toe 

 wanting; ist and 2nd primaries lengthened and attenuated. 



1185. Syrrhaptes thibetanus, Gould, Cent. Him. B. pi. ; id., 



Birds Asia, p. ii. pi. 69 ; Jerd., B. Ind. iii. p. 504 (note and descr.) ; Hume 

 and Marsh., Game Birds Ind. i. p. 43, pi. The THIBETAN SAND GROUSE. 



Male. Forehead and lores whitish, faintly tinged with buffy, the feathers 

 dark shafted ; crown, occiput and nape white, closely and narrowly barred 

 transversely with dark brown ; chin, throat, cheeks, ear coverts, sides and 

 front of neck huffish yellow during the breeding season ; and buffish white 

 during winter ; back of the neck, upper back and lower breast whitish, tinged 

 with vinaceous, and transversely barred narrowly with brown ; scapulars and 

 tertials vinaceous fawn, the inner webs of the scapulars with large black 

 blotches, and everywhere excessively finely vermiculated with blackish brown ; 

 lower back and rump white, vermiculated with greyish brown ; upper tail 

 coverts fawn colour, also vermiculated with greyish brown ; central tail feathers 

 fawn colour, the attenuated portion slaty black ; lateral tail feathers rufous buff, 

 tipped with white and barred widely with black ; primaries and their coverts 

 slaty black, with a white patch near the tip on the inner web ; secondaries 

 black ; lower breast grey ; rest of under surface white, the feathers of the 

 leg tinged with fulvous. 



Length. 1 8 to 20 inches ; wing 9-9 to ID'S ; tail 7-5 to 9-5 ; bill at front 

 074 to 0*78. 



Had. The semi-desert plains of Ladak and the upper portions of the 

 Sutlej Valley. Hume adds that he saw numbers on the Roopshoo plains 

 about the head of the Pangong Lake. It has also been got by Wilson on the 

 water shed range crossing from the Mussoorie hills into Thibet. 



