86 ANIMAL LIFE IN DESERTS 



into the world when the air is hot and dry, when 

 the desert soil is so hot that you cannot keep your 

 hand on it, and when the vegetation is parched 

 and the seeds on which they feed are already air- 

 dry. They run about, even during the hot hoiu-s, 

 near their parents but not sheltered by them, as 

 I have myseK seen at MandaH on the Perso-Mesopo- 

 tamian frontier in August. ^ As their only means 

 of maintaining a body temperature of about 100° F. 

 while they run in a dry atmosphere on desert, 

 the surface of which is 150° F. or higher, is by evapor- 

 ating water, it is not remarkable that special methods 

 have been evolved to bring water to them in their 

 waterless home. /What is remarkable is that the 

 other desert birds appear to Uve successfully without 

 watering their chicks at all. The Crested Larks 

 (Galerida cristata and G. thehloe) fly regularly to 

 water in the evening when water is available near 

 their haunts, though there is no evidence that this 

 habit is invariable or obHgatory ; the Stone Curlew 

 {(Edicnemus) and Coursers {Cursorius) do the same, 

 at any rate sometimes. 



Ticehurst, writing of the birds of Sind, states that 

 the Trumpeter Bullfinch (Erythrospiza githagineus 

 crassirostris) drinks nearly every hour, and that 

 the Striated Bunting (Emheriza s. striolata) drinks 

 at frequent intervals during the day. So far as 

 we know none of the small desert birds give water 

 to their young by regurgitation, and certainly 

 none carry water in their breast-feathers. There 

 is a group of birds which seem to be entirely inde- 

 pendent of water, or rather to depend solely on 



