ORDER gallin-t:. 257 



gling bushes. They are fond of changing place, and traverse 

 daily a considerable extent of country. These journies are 

 performed for the purpose of arriving at the spots where 

 they can get water. When the waters in their neighbour- 

 hood are dried up by the heat of the atmosphere, the gangas 

 then venture across those oceans of moving sand, formi- 

 dable to all other beings, and which the migrating birds 

 of those regions avoid by pursuing their course along the 

 sea coasts. 



Though Nature has doomed the gangas to live in me- 

 lancholy and deserted places, she has given them some 

 benefits in compensation. They unite in those solitudes in 

 companies of many hundreds, which separate only at the 

 epoch of reproduction. For the rest of the year, in their 

 numerous associations, they brave in common the perils of a 

 hazardous voyage, or enjoy together their occasional abun- 

 dance. This peculiarity applies solely to those species of 

 ganga which have the two middle tail-feathers elongated and 

 subulated. These live during the whole year in bands of 

 many hundreds ; the others live in companies, composed, like 

 those of the partridges, of the male, female, and the young. 

 They never perch. They are distinguished by long acumi- 

 nated wings, from which circumstance M. Temminck has 

 given them the name of pterocles. The first remex is the 

 longest. 



The Ganga Chata, {Tetrao Alchata), pin- tailed grous of 

 Latham, is the only species found in the southern parts of 

 Europe. They couple in the month of March, and lay in 

 June two or three eggs on the ground without making any 

 nest. They do not allow themselves to be approached ; and 

 when they perceive any one, they fly off quickly and very 

 high, uttering loud cries. The aridity of the plains obliges 

 them during the heat of summer to go, especially in the 

 morning, to quench their thirst at the borders of ponds, Sec. 



VOL. viii. s 



