704 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. Vol. XLII, 
clytia, Linnzeus, two Terias hecabe, Linneeus, and a Neptis eurynome, West- 
wood, that had only half a wing left. There used to be a mosquito cf the 
genus Anopheles, but the local doctor kept it in a cage in his backyard till it 
died, for fear that it should inoculate the people with malaria, so the race is 
now extinct. Altogether the naturalist in search of novelties would find but 
little to interest him in the island,” } 
LIONEL DE NICEVILLE, 
InpIAN Museum, Catcurta, 23rd February, 1901. 
No, XVI—NIDIFICATION OF THE SPOTTED SAND-GROUSE 
(PTEROCLES SENEGALLUS), 
I think it is worth recording the fact that. I have recently obtained the 
eggs of the Spotted Sand-Grouse (Pierocles senegallus). 
Mr, Fletcher, of the Salt Preventive Frontier Force, living fourteen miles 
north of this, shot some of these birds on the 19th instant, and from three of 
them one egg each was obtained. Two of these eggs are now in my collection, 
the third having the shell too soft to blow. The two eggs I have are pure 
white with the shell smooth and glossy. 
On reference to my books on Birds,I fird that Blanford records having 
obtained one egg “ from a female shot west of Shikarpur on March 20th, 
1875.”. This egg was apparently sent to Mr. Hume, who refers to it in his 
Book “ Nests.and Eggs of Indian Birds,’ as follows :— ~ 
“In shape and size the egg is similar to that of P..exustus, but the markings 
are much more sparse than in any egg of that species that I have ever seen. 
The egg is, of course, cylindro-ovidal, the ground-colour is a pale yellowish- 
stone colour, and the markings, which are thinly distributed over the surface 
of the egg, consist of olive-brown spots and tiny blotches with a few crooked 
and hooked lines: besides these a few pale lilac-purplish or inky-grey spots, 
streaks and smears, having a sub-surface appearance, are scattered irregularly 
about the surface of the egg. Having been extracted from the body of the 
bird, the egg has of course but little gloss,’’ 
Barnes, in his “ Hand-book to the Birds of the Bombay Presidency,’ 
refers to this bird in the following terms :—*‘ Within our limits the Spotted 
Sand-grouse is only common in Sind, but stragglers occasionally find their 
way into portions of Gujarat and.even Rajputana, A few apparently remain 
to breed in Sind, but most of them are mere cold weather visitants,’’ 
My experience of the Spotted Sand-grouse is that they are to be found 
in numbers all along the Runn, 100 miles north of this, during the cold 
weather, and a fair number of them remain throughout the year,. as I have 
seen them inthe hot weather and during the monsoon, 
The fact of the two eggs I have being white is, I think, attributable to their 
having been taken from the birds perhaps a day before they would ordinarily 
have been laid, for it isa fact that the eggs of some birds develope: their 
