18 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIU. 



Fortunately this Sand-Grouse does not seem to be decreasing in 

 -India, bags are made as big now as were made 50 j^ears ago and the 

 flocks seem to be as big and as numerous as ever they were in Hume's 

 time. It is not so long ago that Major Nurse wrote as follows "The 

 Common Sand-Grouse (Pterocles exustus) has been unusually abund- 

 ant at Deesa this j^ear. I feel sure they must have increased in 

 numbers since I first came here, now nearly five years ago. Possib- 

 ly the last few years, which have been luiusually dry, have been 

 especially favourable to their increase. A few weeks ago over 400 

 were shot over a running stream one morning by a party of 7 or 8 

 guns, and this at a place where more than 200 birds had been killed 

 on several previous occasions during the course of a few M^eeks." 



Here and there a sportsmen writes to say that he thinks the birds 

 Iiave decreased in numbers, but where this is the case the decrease 

 is generally found to correspond with an increase in cultivation or 

 irrigation and where their haunts have been left untouched there the 

 birds seem to be much as they were in Hume's time. 



The Common Sand-Grouse breeds everywhere within its range in 

 India, more freelj^ in some parts than in others according to whether 

 the wide stretches of waste lands it loves and requires are obtainable 

 or not. 



The Common Sand-Grouse is an easy bird to domesticate and is 

 often kept by natives and has also been successfully kept by 

 Europeans. Mr. C, Barnby Smith has the following interesting 

 notes on this bird in captivit)^ in the August 1910 niimber of the 

 Avicultural • Magazine " A friend very kindly sent me over three 

 Indian Painted Sand-Grouse (Pterocles fasciatus) caught near Bho- 

 pal in Central India. The birds (a cock and two hens) arrived in 

 good health in the early part of last February. At the same time a 

 consignment of the Common Pintail Sand-Grouse (P. exustus) 

 arrived. These birds seem to travel well, as out of eighteen birds 

 that left Calcutta sixteen arrived alive. 



" Such of the Pin-tailed Sand-Grouse as I retained for myself I 

 put at first with the Painted Sand-Grouse in the conventional sort 

 of place — a large wooden shed (with sand floor) open on the South, 

 on which side it has a sort of glass verandah with grass on the 

 ground underneath. 



" The birds were, and are, fed on millet, canary, maw, rape and 

 hemp seeds, but seem to like millet best of all. They are also 

 supplied with lime, small flint, grit and rock salt. 



" The Pin-tailed Sand-Grouse do not seem to care for grass at all 

 but love to squat in the sand, basking in the sun whenever possible. 

 The greatest danger with these birds seems to be their sudden 

 panics, which makes them dash violently against the sides of the 

 enclosures unless the feathers of one wing are heavily cut. My 

 birds arrived late at night (as birds always seem to do) and when I 



