230 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
and the dark cheek does not contrast so strongly as in the 
Indian species —W. E. Brooks. 
CAWNPORE. 
SIR 
I have been the usual round of the Kurrachee Districts 
this year and I have got some more of the Crowned Sandgrouse 
(P. coronatus), but I spoilt the skins very much I am sorry 
to say; however I am sending you one male and one female 
which I hope may be of some use. The latter is a very 
dark plumaged bird. I also send one male and two females 
of what I take to be Pterocles Lichtensteint, which you 
mention in Stray Fratuers as having shot in Sind near Mehur. 
I see Jerdon mentions that “ Lichtensteini”’ is not unlike fascia- 
tus, but differs in being larger.’ Now I have shot great numbers 
of “ fasciatus”” in Khandesh and am certain it is a larger* 
and heavier bird than the ones I send you for “ Lichtensteini.”’ 
These birds I killed under the bare sandy Ibex hills and got 
them at the water after dusk. I have watched for them 
three or four times and they never come until it is just dark 
and are therefore difficult to get. They come in flocks of 
five or six, but I only succeeded in shooting the three I 
now send you, and they are the smallest kind of Sandgrouse 
I have killed, and I have shot the following :—arenarius, fascia- 
tus, evustus, coronatus, and senegalius. Last cold weather 
not a single one of arenarius was to be found in the Kurrachee 
District. I made every inquiry for them as I had never 
seen one, but without success. This year they were in large 
numbers to the north of the Munchur, and I killed one bird 
out of five I saw as far south as Kotree and I cannot hear 
of their ever having been seen so low down before.—FRank 
WISE. 
KUuURRACHEE DISTRICT. 
Sir, 
During a recent visit to Egypt, I shot several Stilts 
(Himantopus candidus, Bonn.) the plumage of whose heads 
is to me a mystery, but perhaps you who live in India 
may be able to explain whether the white head is the 
distinguishing mark of the summer plumage. Two adults, 
apparently shot in the spring, have the one a dark brown 
head and neck, the other those parts white—J. H. Gurney, 
JUNIOR. 
Nortureres Haut, Norwicu. 
* For exact dimensions see. Vol. I., p. 219, 
