Contributions to the Ornithology of India, 8fc. 221 



Wrongly tinged with rufous, except just at the tips and mar- 

 gins. The wiugs of the female are otherwise similar to the 

 male_, but want the French grey band at the bases of the secon- 

 daries. 



This species closely resembles P . fasciaiios , but the males are 

 distinguished at a glance, by the entire absence of the barring 

 all round the lower throat and neck of y»5c^a'^!^^,y, by the much 

 bolder character of the barrings on the back o^fasciatus, and by 

 the abdomen in fasciati^jS being black with crescentic white 

 marks, instead of white with crescentic black ones as in the 

 present species ; the difference in the abdomen holds good in the 

 females, and besides the whole chin and throat is spotless isabel- 

 line ixifasciatus female, while it is albescent, throughout closely 

 speckled, with blackish brown in the female Lichtensteinii. The 

 upper surface of the female in both species belongs to the same 

 type, hvit fasciatiis is much more rufous and has far bolder 

 markings. Lastly, the bills in the present species are consider- 

 ably longer than iwfasciatus which has it in the male 0*4 to 

 0"45 ; and in the female, 0"35 to 0'4. 



This species has hitherto only been reported from Northern 

 Africa, and to the best of my belief. North- Western Arabia; 

 fasciatus does not appear to have been ever met with in Sindh. 



801 — Pterocles alchata, L. 



I never myself succeeded in shooting a single specimen of this 

 species while in Sindh, but I saw one or two flocks of it some 

 few miles west of Jacobabad, and I was assured by an Officer 

 there who is not only a first-rate sportsman but somewhat of an 

 ornithologist also, that in this north-west corner of Sindh they 

 arrive in spring in countless multitudes, and are incomparably 

 more numerous at that time than all the other sand grouse put 

 together. They appear to remain for only a very short period. 

 For about three months in mid-winter, this species known to 

 local sportsmen, as the painted rock grouse, is abundant about 

 Murdan, near Attock, in parts of the Peshawur valley, Abbota- 

 bad, and some isolated localities in Huzara. Nowhere in India 

 does it descend far into the plains. 



801 &?;§.— Pterocles senegallus, L.—T. E. 



130, — PI Col. 345. — Gould's birds, Asia, III. pi. 

 6; — guttatus, Licht. — Senegalensis, Shaw. — Alchata^ 

 B. Senegallus, Omel. — Tachypetes, p. Tern. 



Numerous as the spotted sand grouse were incerta in localities, ^ 

 they were as a rule only met with within a comparatively nar- 

 row zone ; that within which the inundation tracts abut on the ; 



