THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 5 



dress resembling the hen, except the slate blue bars on the back 

 are missing. As far as I can ascertain these changes are brought 

 about by a complete renewal of feather and all are complete, but 

 the eclipse plumage is only perfect in adult and vigorous birds, 

 otherwise the feathers that are first shed partake of the character of 

 breeding plumage and eclipse azid those last moulted of eclipse and 

 win ter plumage . ' ' 



There are two sub-species of this Sand-Grouse which are very 

 closely allied, viz., those referred to in the Catalogue of Birds as 

 Pteroclurus cdcliata and Pterodurus lyyrenaica, and before dealing 

 with the distribution of these two forms, which will have to be 

 considerably revised, it will be first necessary to dispose of the 

 question of the names under which these two forms should be 

 known. 



The name jj?/re9?.cacct was first given in 1760 by Brisson, to a 

 bird from the Pyrenees, which in his " Ornithology" I, p. 195, he 

 called Bonasa fyrenaica. Brisson's names are not, however, ac- 

 cepted in Ornithology unless adopted by Linnaeus, and in this 

 particular case Linnaeus discards the name lyyrenaica and renames 

 the bird alchcda. 



This is in the 12th edition of his System Naturae, the first in 

 which he mentions this species, though he refers to the genus Bona- 

 sa in the 10th edition. In the 12th edition he refers to this spe- 

 cies as Bonasa alchata and states that its habitat is " Monspelir in 

 Pyrenoeis, Syria, Arabia," the bird, therefore, is undoirbtedly the 

 same as that named pyreiiaica by Brisson, which is the Spanish 

 bird and Linnaeus merely adds Arabia and Syi'ia to its habitat. 

 Gessner, it should be noted (Avi. 311-307) describes his bird alchata 

 as European, giving Italian, German and French names for it, he 

 could not, therefore, have been referring either to Asiatic or Afri- 

 can specimens, any more than Brisson did. 



Under these circumstances the sub-species referred to as 2W^~ 

 naica in the " Catalogue of Birds " cannot bear that name and will 

 have to stand as Pteroclurus alchata alchata (Linn.) and another 

 name must be found for the Asiatic sub-species. The one having 

 •priority and, therefore applicable, seems to be caudacutus given by 

 Gmelin, in 1774, to the form found in SoLithern Eussia (S.G. Gme- 

 lin, Eeisa, iii, p. 93, pi. xviii, 1774) for the South Russian bird is 

 the same as that found in Asia Minor, Palestine, etc., and these 

 again are the same as our Indian birds. 



Accordingly, the two forms will stand as follows : Pteroclurus al- 

 chata alchata for that sub-species found in Spain, etc. and Pt. al- 

 chata caudacuta (Gmelin) for the sub-species found in Asia, etc. 



Russian ornithologists have divided this Sand Grouse into two 

 further sub-species, naming the bird from Sotith Persia, Afghani- 

 stan and Baluchistan (and of course India) Pteroclurus alchata 



