THE



219



Bvicultural fllbagasme,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURA L SOCIETY.



New Series. —VOL. IV. — NO. 7 .—All rights reserved.



MAY, 1906.



SANDGROUSE.


By E. G. B. Mkade-Waldo, M.B.O.U.


The exquisite family of Sandgrouse has had a great

attraction for me for many years. Their wonderful colouring that,

although so bizarre in many cases, is yet so invisible in their

desolate surroundings. The comparative ease in which they can

be kept in confinement at apparently great comfort to them¬

selves, for I know no birds so contented as they. The interest

attached to their most peculiar breeding habits, and the wonder¬

ful seasonal changes in plumage in at least one species all tend

to make them an attractive group. Of the species that I am best

acquainted with all but one appear to be quite hardy in an open

unheated aviary in this country, at any rate in the South of

England, and the exception is the Western Painted Sandgrouse,

Pterocles quadricinctus , probably all the group are the same ; but

P. arenarius, P, senegallus, Pteroclurus alchatus, (and its Western

representative P. pyrenaicus), P. exustus, Syrrhaptes paradoxus ,

and, I presume, Pterocles coronatus, are all quite hardy and

require only a roomy and dry aviary, well protected from wind,

south or south-east exposure, and an open-fronted but roofed-in

compartment, where they can bask in the sun and shelter; the

front compartment should contain a lawn, kept mown, surrounded

with a well-rolled gravel path. The floor of the back compart¬

ment is far better if of natural soil, as the birds can bask in it and

dust when the open compartment is too moist. It is well to

have the soil everywhere well beaten down and firm, as the birds

will not sit properly if the soil is loose and the eggs get half

buried in sand or dry earth. They eat all small seeds, lawn



