HEMIPODES—SAND- GRO USE. 



241 



At the end of the series of Garae-Birds are found some tiny birds, which 

 look like dwarf partridges. These are the bustard-quails or hemipodes, 

 which were formerly associated with the true quails (Cotii-r- 

 nix). The differences between the hemipodes and the The Hemipodes. 

 Game-Birds are chiefly osteological, and need not be detailed — Genus Turnix. 

 here ; but the absence of the hind-toe distinguishes the 

 genus Turnix at a glance, though the Australian genus Pedionomus has four 

 toes like an ordinary Game-Bird. One of the most curious facts connected 

 with the hemipodes is the superior size and colour of the female. In some 

 cases she is nearly twice the size of her mate, and on the latter devolves the 

 duty of hatching the eggs out and taking care of the young. It is curious 

 that these little birds should have such an ostrich-like peculiarity, but there 

 is otherwise nothing struthious about them, for the hemipodes have the bones 

 of the palate more like those of Passerine-Birds than those of Game-Birds. 

 They frequent the open plains and grass-country, but are also found in 

 some places on the outskirts of cultivation. Hemipodes are entirely birds 

 of the Old World, and are distributed over Africa, Madagascar, India, and 

 China, and extend throughout the Malayan Archipelago to Australia. 



The sand-grouse are peculiar birds, half Pigeons, half Game-Birds, of which 

 the English people are not ignorant. Although the sand-grouse are birds of the 

 desert, and are found throughout Africa, Central Asia, India, Th "3 ,i 

 and the Tibetan and Mongolian plateaux, there is one _ ^ ^^ 2 

 species, Pallas' sand-grouse {Sijrrhoptes paradoxals), which Pterocle.te.s 

 makes regular irruptions from its Eastern home in the 

 Kirghis deserts into Western Europe, and at times visits England in swarms. 

 Doubtless these immigrations have occurred for ages at regular intervals, 

 but in the Middle Ages our ancestors were too much occupied in fighting and 

 cutting each others' throats to notice a swift-flying bird like the sand-grouse, 

 wliich their 'weapons would have been powerless to capture. And thus 

 it happens that our first great record of the occurrence of Pallas' sand-grouse 

 in England took i^lace in 1863, 

 and then again in 1888 another 

 great irruption took place, when 

 not only a large number were seen 

 in Western Europe, but they actu- 

 ally stayed and even nested in 

 Great Britain. In some places the 

 flocks were protected by intelligent 

 land-owners ; but they ultimately 

 disappeared, having apparently mi- 

 grated back to their Eastern home. 



The sand-grouse are certainly 

 desert birds, their very plumage 



Fig. 12, 



-The Pin-tailed Sand-Gbouse. 

 I^teroclurus alchata 



being of a sandy colour, and assimilating to their surroundings. In many of 

 their osteological characters they resemble the pigeons, but in the digestive 

 organs they resemble Game-Birds, so that their natural position is as a dis- 

 tinct order between these two well-marked groups. They have feathered 

 legs, but never carry a spur like Game-Birds, and they have eitlier tliree 

 toes, or, if the fourth toe is present, it is only rudimentary. Tlie egg is, 

 however, peculiar, being neither white like that of the pigeons, nor uniform 

 like that of the pheasants and partridges, nor richly mottled lilce that of the 

 grouse, but doiible-spotted, with brown spots mostly in evidence, and under- 



ir 



