9 8 THE CASPIAN AREA 



body sloping downwards, the plumage bristled up, the head dropped between the 

 shoulders, and the feet pointing inwards. When picking up food,, it adopts a 

 peculiar attitude, bowing the head so low and holding the tail so high that the 

 bird looks as thouo-h it were about to turn a somersault. Awkward though it 

 may appear on the ground, it is, however, extremely active on the wing, its 

 flight resemblino- that of the golden plover. On starting, the bird flaps its 

 wings like a pigeon, but when in full flight moves with great rapidity. When 

 on the wing, flocks of these birds assume the form of a solid triangle, with the 

 apex in the direction of flight, travelling at a height of about 200 feet from the 

 ground. More generally, however, they fly in files at a height of from 15 to 30 feet, 

 although single birds often rise higher. When rising, they utter a high shrill 

 " tick, tickticktick, tick " ; the call is " kurr kurr," and sometimes there is heard 

 a low sonorous " geluk geluk." 



In the middle of April the hens begin to brood their three or four eggs, which 

 are greenish or greyish yellow, spotted with brown and lilac, and are laid in a 

 slight hollow with little or no lining. A second clutch is laid during the summer. 

 In the late autumn these sand-grouse migrate to warmer regions, w T hence they 

 return in March or the beginning of April to their breeding-grounds. In summer 

 they wander considerable distances over their native steppes, and, like other birds 

 inhabiting the same area, sometimes leave their home to appear in innumerable 

 flocks in more western lands. In 1859, for instance, multitudes appeared in 

 Europe, as they did again in 1863. In the latter year most of the countries north 

 of the Alps, including France and England in the west, Switzerland in the south, 

 and Jutland in the north, were visited by these birds in great numbers. In con- 

 sequence, however, of the destruction inflicted on the flocks by gunners, very few 

 appeared the following season. In 1888 occurred another incursion when the 

 flocks visited Prussia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, 

 Oldenburg, Saxony, and Bavaria, and continued their journe} T in a westward 

 direction to Great Britain. 



These long wanderings of Pallas's sand-grouse do not, however, lead to any 

 increase in the size of its normal distributional area; and they probably occur 

 merely in consequence of unfavourable weather, or a temporary scarcity of food. 

 Their nutriment apparently consists solely of green vegetable substances and 

 seeds, no less than forty-five different kinds of seeds having been taken from the 

 crop of a specimen killed in Scotland in 1889. In its partiality for vetch-seed this 

 bird resembles pigeons, to which it also approximates in its bodily form and 

 peculiar way of drinking. 



DemoiseUe The Caspian province forms almost the centre of the distribu- 



Crane. tional area of a small species of crane, which ranges from Algiers 

 through northern Africa, south-western Asia, the Caspian countries, and the central 

 Asiatic steppe as far as China, and winters in southern India and central Africa, 

 especially on the White Nile. This bird was known to the ancient Romans as the 

 " virgin from Numidia," and is now called the demoiselle crane (Anthropoides virgo). 

 Its chief habitat is the country round the mouth of the Volga, where it dwells amid 

 the steppes and marshes. It resembles the European crane in the choice of its 

 nesting-places, as well as in being a bird of the open country rather than of the 



