SAND GROUSE. 9 



half-past ten or eleven a.m. On these occasions 

 they are most interesting to watch ; for, arriving in 

 pairs, sometimes in threes, they wheel about over 

 the drinking-place till their numbers are augmented 

 into dozens, when, with a swoop, they make a descent 

 of such rapidity as is generally expected only to be 

 performed by members of the falcon family. When 

 in large parties their flight resembles very much 

 that of golden plover ; yet, to my thinking, it is 

 of a very much bolder and more determined 

 character. 



As I have spoken of the sub-family Pterodina, it affords me 

 great pleasure to place before my readers an excellent likeness 

 of the variegated sand grouse (Pterodes variegatus}. The two 

 others, double-banded sand grouse (Pterodes bicinctus) and the 

 Namaqua sand grouse {Pterodes Namaqua\ will be found further 

 on, as incidents connected with them occur. This group is the 

 more interesting, as the habitat of the last-mentioned is so 

 extensive that I have shot them in Manchuria, Mongolia, Asia 

 Minor, Russia and Northern Africa, as well as in the country 

 this book treats of, viz., the plateau lands of the interior of 

 Southern Africa. This family is unknown in the Americas. 



