366 ptbeoci/IDjE. 



I might have believed them to belong to some large species of 

 Nightjar. 



The eggs are very regular, obtuse-ended, cylindrical ellipsoids, 

 the shell very smooth and glossy, the ground-colour a delicate pale 

 salmon-pink, \yith a good many, somewhat vcidely scattered specks 

 and tiny streaks of brownish red in all the eggs, much more nume- 

 rous towards one or other end, and with a good many small pale 

 inky-purple spots and clouds, almost exclusively confined to that 

 end where the markings are most numerous. 



Specimens are occasionally met with in which the markings are 

 very sparse, and I have one specimen in which they are absolutely 

 and entirely wanting. Xot unfrequently the markings form a 

 pretty perfect zone towards one end, and here and there an egg 

 is met with exhibiting six or eight large deep brownish-red blotches. 

 Pale pinky white, white, and somewhat buffy stone-colour grounds 

 are also met with. 



In length the eggs vary from 1-3 to 1-62, and in breadth from 

 0-93 to 1-05 ; but the average of forty eggs is 1-42 by 0-98 *- 



Pterocles seaegalus (Linn.). The Spotted Sand-Grouse. 

 Pterocles senegalus {Linn.), Hume, Cat. no. 801 bis. 



A single egg of this species I owe to Mr. "William T. Blanford, 

 who extracted it from the body of a female which he shot on the 

 20th March, 1875, in the desert west of Shikarpoor, Upper Sindh. 

 In shape and size the egg is similar to that of P. exustus, but the 

 markings are much more sparse than in any egg of that species 

 that I have ever seen. The egg is of course cylindro-ovoidal, the 

 ground-colour is a pale yellowish stone-colour, and the markings, 

 which are thinly distributed over the surface of the egg, consist of 

 olive-brown spots and tiny blotches with a few crooked and hooked 

 lines ; besides these, a few pale lilac-purplish or inky-grey spots, 

 streaks, and smears having a subsurface appearance are scattered 

 irregularly about the surface of the egg. 



Having been extracted from the body of the bird the egg has of 

 course but little gloss. It measures 1-5 by 1"05. 



* Lieut. H. B. Barnes records the following notes on the nests of two species 

 of Sand-Grouse he found in Afghanistan. He writes from Chaman : — 



Pterocles aeenarius (Pall.). 



" The Large Sand-Grouse is verj- common. I foimd them breeding in May. 

 The eggs, three in number, are, as regards shape and colour, exact counterparts 

 of those of Pterocles exustus, but are of course much larger. They average 1-8 

 by 1-35." 



Pterocles corosatvs. Licht. 



" The Coronetted Sand-Grouse is not very common. I have only seen a single 

 pair, which I shot, and from a spot where I flushed them I found three eggs, 

 so hard-set as to be unfit for specimens. They measured \7> by 1-06." 



