PTEEOCLES. 361 



Order GRALL^. 



Family PTEROCLID^. 



Pterocles exustus, Temm. The Common Sand-Grouse. 



Pterocles exustus, Temm., Jerd. B, Ind. ii, p. 502; Hume, Hough 

 Draft N. Sf E. no. 803. 



The Common Sand-Grouse breeds throughout the drier and barer 

 portions of the more or less sandy plains of the continent of India, 

 fiocks and hills, forests and swamps, it equally eschews, and the 

 haunts it best loves, and where its nests may be found in greatest 

 numbers, are scattered fallow or stubble, or newly-ploughed fields, 

 dotted about on and surrounded by large semi-desert plains. As 

 to the breeding-season I hardly know what to say. I haye found 

 their eggs almost every month of the year in one place or another, 

 but in the North-West Provinces the majority probably lay from 

 April to June. 



Further west and north, where the rainfall is very scanty, they 

 must, I think, have two or more broods in the year. 



Khan Nizam-oo-deen, Khan Bahadoor, the well-known Punjab 

 sportsman, vrho has collected for me for so many years, always 

 kept up a register, showing from day to day the various birds and 

 eggs obtained, the localities in which found, &e., and this he always 

 sent me with each batch of skins and eggs. 



Prom his registers for 1869 and 1870 I find that he took nests 

 of this present species on the subjoined dates in each year : this 

 was at TJrneewalla, some fifteen miles east of Pazilka in the Sirsa 

 District. 



1869. 1870. 



January 



February ... 3rd, 24th. 



March Ist, 4th, 12th, 2l9t. 



April 21st, 22ncl, 27th, 28th. 



May 8tb,25th. Ist, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 15th, 28th. 



Jane 16th, 17th, 30th. 11th, 15th, 21st, 30th. 



July 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th, 11th, 12th. 23rd. 



August 



September ... 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 10th. 



October 3rd, 22nd. 



November .. 24th. 



December ... 7th, 20th. 



In some cases three nests were found in a single day. During 

 these two years he sent me so many eggs that I begged him to 

 collect no more, and so after 1870 these eggs are never mentioned. 



