SENEGAL SAND-GROUSE 97 
heard would never be forgotten, and it has, as all 
Nature’s notes have, an entire suitability to the 
surroundings, and like the boundless, yellow, dry, 
herbless desert it is wild and weird, yet beautiful. 
I remember once a quite intelligent Scotch 
keeper answering an inquiry, as to what Ptarmi- 
gan found to eat amongst the barren hill- 
tops where they live with the amazing statement, 
delivered in the most solemn manner, “that they 
just lived on the little stones,” and when doubt 
was thrown on his information, declared that he had 
often cut them open to see, and had never found 
anything in their crops “but just the wee stones.” 
And the inquiry might well be made as to the 
source of food of the Sand-grouse when one sees a 
large flock in the desert places that they love to be 
in during the day, if one did not know of their 
wondrous powers of flight, which make nothing of 
flying scores of miles to the far-distant edges of 
cultivated ground. 
I have watched Sand-grouse quite close at hand, 
and when on the ground they are rather dumpy- 
shaped and uninteresting ; if disturbed, they pull 
themselves together a bit and run off to a short 
distance, and settle down again in a crouching 
position; if again disturbed they probably rise 
18 
