132 PIN-TAILED SAND GROUSE. 



inches, the latter extending three inches beyond the shorter feathers of the 

 tail. From carpus to the end of the long pointed wing eight inches and 

 a half; beak eight lines; tarsi one inch and one fifth; middle toe and claw 

 one inch. 



This most elegant and beautiful of birds claims Spain and the 

 Pyrenees as its principal European locality, for whicli reason it was 

 named by Brisson La Gelinote des Pyrenees. It is also found in 

 Sicily and the Levant, the plains of Crau in Provence, and accidentally 

 in the northern parts of France. Its real home, however, is in the 

 sandy^ plains of Africa and Asia, where it ranges from the three 

 provinces of Algeria, through the Great Sahara, to Egypt, Syria, 

 Persia, and thence to the burning sands of India, being common, as 

 Dr. Leith Adams informs me, in Afghanistan. 



Salvadori (Fauna d' Italia) writes : — " Temminck says this bird is 

 common in Sicily and the Neapolitan States, but it has not been 

 observed by Costa and others, and we may be quite certain it does 

 not occur in the latter. Doderlein is inclined to believe that it 

 does not occur in Sicily, but considering that several specimens are 

 jDreserved in the almost exclusively local museums of Catania, Messina, 

 and Syracuse, though not known exactly whence they came, the 

 probabilities are in favour of their having been captured in Sicily, 

 the more so as Doderlein tells us that Cupani gives a plate of it in 

 his 'Panphiton siculune.' According to Schembri various individuals 

 were taken in Malta in 1843, but it does not apjjear, according to 

 Wright, to have been captured there at any other time. E.isso says 

 it has been taken accidentally about Nice, where it is not difficult to 

 believe that it may wander from the sterile lands of the Carmargue, 

 in the neighbouring province. Verany confirms Pisso's statement by 

 stating that a specimen was captured near Nice in mid-winter. — (Atti. 

 Scieuz. Ital. Firewze, 1841, p. 314.) It does not appear that this 

 species has been found elsewhere in Italy." 



Deputy Surgeon-General Stewart informs me that he has seen 

 specimens of this bird which were shot in the desert east of Deesa, 

 Bombay Presidency, from which locality were also brought in the same 

 collection examples of P. arenarius, P. exustus, and P. fasciatus. 



In Eastern Africa we are informed by Mr. Salvin, (Ibis, vol. i, p. 

 352,) that he only found this bird in the extensive sandy plains, — 

 the Harakta, In the north of Africa, however. Canon Tristram (Ibis, 

 vol. ii, p. 70,) says that it is far more abundant, and continues to 

 occur in vast flocks in winter, in the M'zab and Touarick, where the 

 next described species, P. arenarius, is not found. 



