THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 9 



In a longer account in the Avicultural Magazine for 1906, 

 p. 219, Mr. Meade Waldo gave yet further details of this curious 

 habit, as well as other most interesting details. He writes " In- 

 cubation lasts from twent5^-one to twenty-three daj^s : the hen sits by 

 day, the cock taking her place by night, usually going on the eggs 

 about 5 p. m. ; three eggs are a full clutch. The J^oung when 

 hatched cjuickly become independent, and about the 10th day 

 separate at night, roosting away from their parents, and as far as 

 possible from each other, not settling down to their final roosting 

 place until it is almost dark. Both parents brood the young when 

 they are very small." 



" The extraordinary inethod employed by the parent male Sand- 

 Grrouse of conveying water to their young by saturating the feathers 

 •of their breasts, was first described by me in 1 8 9 6 , and since hj Mr, St. 

 Quentin in his interesting account of the successful rearing of the 

 Lesser Pin-tailed Sand-Grouse, P. exushcs. I have had the good fortune 

 to see the males of Pterocles arenarius, the Black-breasted Sand-Grouse 

 and Pterodurus alcJiata, the Greater Pin-tailed Sand-Grouse get- 

 ting water for their young in a wild state, but, had I not seen it 

 administered in confinement, would have considered them to have 

 been demented birds trying to dust in mud and water, when 

 unlimited dusting ground surrounded them on every side. 



"In very waterless districts, where the only water procurable was 

 from deep wells situated at great distances from one another, this 

 method of procuring water must be most precarious, for I saw P. 

 arenarius waiting by the wells and going to the muddy spot where 

 the skins used to be laid before being loaded on to the camels, and 

 where the water was slopped over from the troughs where the ani- 

 mals drank. I also saw them fly over the prickly Zareba surrounding 

 the tent-villages and go to where there was a soft spot for the same 

 purpose. I did "(not?)" see P. alcliatus actually soaking them- 

 selves, they were much wilder, and also in less arid places, but I 

 repeatedl)- saw cocks pass over, their white breasts soaked in mud 

 and water." 



A further interesting note in the Avicultural Magazine for Feb- 

 bruary 1910 by the same writer describes how he kept a female bird 

 of this species in confinement for 1 7 j^ears, so that she must have 

 been at least 18 years old at the time of her death. She bred 

 regularly year after jeox from 1893 to 1906, and generally 

 succeeded in bringing up her young. Mr. Meade Waldo tells us 

 that with other food, he gave her as much hemp seed and maw seed 

 as she liked, and that the latter was her favourite seed. 



Pterodurus alcJiata does not regularly breed with us in India, 

 though it has done so on rare occasions and ma}^, quite possibly, be 

 often found to do so ; otherwise it breeds in suitable localities 

 throughout its range. 



