530 PALLAS'S SANDGROUSE 



Christiansen reared a young bird on grass and clover seed, and G. Sim, in the 

 Vertebrate Fauna of Dee, p. 158, gives the following list of food plants which have 

 been satisfactorily identified in the British Isles: Yare or spurrey, Spergula arvensis; 

 knot grass, Polygonum aviculare ; clover, probably Trifolium pratense ; orache, 

 Atriplex babingtonii ; flowers and seed of small yellow clover, T. minus ; mouse- 

 eared chickweed, Cerastium vulgare ; eyebright, Euphrasia officinalis ; leaves and 

 seed of sorrel, Rumex aeetosella ; chickweed, Stellaria media ; dock, Rumex crispus ; 

 rye-grass, Lolium perenne ; broom, Spartium scopurium ; Molina ccerulea ; bent, 

 Triticum junceum ; various vetches, and indeed Leguminosce generally ; barley, 

 wheat, and oats ; large seeds apparently of the apple ; and the chrysalides of some 

 small moth. The chief article of diet was yare seed : often three-quarters of an 

 ounce were taken from a single crop. Chapman (Bird Life of the Borders, 2nd ed., 

 p. 141) records seeds of the common field runch, a noxious weed, in birds shot on 

 Holy Island. Tegetmeier found chiefly chickweed and Poa annua ; and Stevenson 

 gives details of the contents of the crops of Norfolk killed birds in vol. i. p. 394 

 of the Birds of Norfolk. For summary of results of food investigation on the 

 Continent see Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mittekuropas, vii. p. 37. 

 [F. c. B. j.] 



6. Song Period. Whether the cries uttered by the male birds in flight repre- 

 sent the song of this species is not clear, but all observers note that these sounds are 

 continually uttered in the spring and early summer, and Captain Dunbar-Brander 

 notes that when the birds arrived in May they flew with a cry, "chak, chak" while 

 in October nothing was heard but the loud " sough" of the wings, no cry (A Fauna 

 of the Moray Basin, ii. p. 139). [F. c. E. J.] 



