296 PTEROCLID^E, 



make no nest to speak of, but merely scrape a slight depression 

 in the,vground, at a spot, sheltered by a tuft of grass or bush. 

 The eggs, two or three in number, (usually three) are of a cylin- 

 drical shape, delicate pale salmon- pink in color, with specks and 

 tiny streaks of brownish-red, with a good many spots or clouds 

 of pale inky-purple intermingled. 



They measure 1*4 inches in length by 0'98 in breadth. 



Pterocles lichtensteini, Tem. 



SOObis. Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 212; Game 

 Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 65. 



THE CLOSE-BARRED SAND GROUSE. 



Length, 10'25 to 1075 ; expanse, 20 to 21 ; wing, 6'5 to 675 ; 

 tail, 3'25 ; tarsus, T05 ; bill from gape, 0'65 ; weight, 8 oz. 



Bill fleshy-brown ; irides brown ; legs orange-yellow. 



Frontal zone white, or buffy- white ; a broad black semi-circu- 

 lar band behind it extending from the exterior angle of the 

 eye on each side ; behind this another white or buffy- white 

 band, interrupted on the crown, the feathers of which are buffy 

 white and mesially dark brown ; a buff spot above the hinder 

 angle of each eye ; chin and throat pale buff, their sides the 

 same, with minute black spots; upper breast, hind-neck, and 

 back, pale or fulvous white, with regular and close barrings 

 of black ; scapulars, wing-coverts and tertiaries the same, the 

 black transverse bars rather broader and deeper in color, the 

 tips of the feathers broadly yellowish-buff; upper tail-coverts 

 fulvous-white, the black bars more distant and as wide as the 

 fulvous interspaces ; primaries and their coverts hair-brown, the 

 outer web of the first margined with dull white, more conspi- 

 cuous basally, and some of the inner ones with white margins 

 to the tips ; secondaries dark brown ; lower breast yellowish- 

 buff, with a narrow black band crossing it in the middle and 

 another on the lower part of the breast, formed by the dark 

 termination of the lowest breast feathers ; below this the abdo- 

 men, flanks, vent and under tail-coverts are white, with trans- 

 verse brown bars ; tarsal plumes buffy-white ; tail barred buff 

 and black, the terminal black bar broadest, with a streak run- 

 ning up the shafts of the feathers and partially dividing the 

 broad buffy tips. 



The female wants the frontal patch and the semi-circular 

 band behind it, also the buff breast and band crossing it in 

 the middle ; the chin and throat are pale buffy, minutely spotted 

 with dark brown ; the upper surface of the body finely, closely, 

 and narrowly barred with pale fulvous and dark brown ; the 

 lower surface the same, but the fulvous interspaces are broader 

 and the dark bars narrower. 



The Close-barred Sand Grouse is a cold weather visitant to 

 the trans-indus portion of Sind. 



