NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



occasionally the big yellow-throated sand-grouse drank 

 at that time also. But the greatest assemblages were 

 in the morning. The spectacle of these punctual 

 creatures, streaming in from all parts of the compass 

 with unfailing regularity between eight and ten o'clock, 

 was always most fascinating. After drinking they 

 circled once or twice round the water pool, and then 

 flew off with amazing swiftness for their day of feeding 

 in the dry, sun-scorched desert. The seeds of grass 

 and other desert plants seem to constitute their prin- 

 cipal food. We could have shot hundreds of these 

 birds on these occasions ; we actually bagged a few 

 score brace at different times for our bushmen and 

 followers. At times, one is sorry to say, fifty or a 

 hundred of these beautiful creatures are shot by some 

 wantonly murderous gunner as they descend in a body 

 or sit at the water drinking. The flesh of sand-grouse 

 is dry and not equal in flavour or quality to that of 

 the true game-birds. The skins of the various South 

 African species, and probably of most of the others, 

 are marvellously tough, and give much trouble in 

 divesting these birds of their plumage. 



For some time sand -grouse puzzled the earlier 

 naturalists a good deal. They are a singular blend- 

 ing of two very different orders, and partake largely 

 of the characteristics of both grouse and pigeon. In 

 their heads and the shape of their bodies they strongly 

 resemble the pigeon ; their splendid flight is, too, far 

 more like that of the pigeon than of the grouse. 

 Against these characteristics are to be set the grouse- 

 like feathering of the legs and feet. In one species 

 at least, the great yellow-throated sand-grouse of South 

 Africa, the under colouring of the body plumage a 

 deep chocolate-brown and the cry are also strongly 

 grouse-like. The upper colouring of all this family 



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