GAME-BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



and beautiful sulphur-green colouring of the neck and breast 

 of the male, and the dark brown gorget-like band upon the 

 breast, serve still to render this a notable bird. All the Sand- 

 grouse have very tough skins, which afford real hard work 

 to separate from the flesh ; this, at all events, was my 

 experience in South Africa. The flesh of all Sandgrouse is 

 tough, and compares poorly with that of many of the South 

 African game-birds. 



" During day-time the YeUow-throated species spread over 

 an immense extent of country — their magnificent powers of 

 flight helping them largely to feed in pairs or families, perhaps 

 even a couple of families, their food consisting chiefly of 

 grass-seeds, which in the grassy wastes of the Kalahari they 

 find plentiful enough. The cry of these birds, as they come to 

 water is a hoarse ' Glock, glock.' My hunting friend W. Dove, 

 who is a Lowland Scot, compared it, not inaptly, with 

 the call of Grouse as they fly in among the corn-stooks in 

 autumn. We shot 18 brace of the Variegated and Namaqua 

 Sandgrouse at the pool of Maqua by fair shooting (not en 

 masse), and could have easily killed fifty brace or more if we 

 had been so minded. Butcherly gunners sometimes fire into 

 a hugh flight of Sandgrouse as they get up in a cloud from 

 the water, and kiU scores. Although we saw large numbers 

 of Yellow-throated Sandgrouse at Maqua, as a rule they 

 seem to me to be scarcer than the other species. For close 

 on two hours, from 8 to 10 a.m., at this pool these three 

 species of Sandgrouse streamed in from various parts of 

 the compass, the Namaqua and Variegated uttering inces- 

 santly their sharp shrill cries. The Yellow-throated, which 

 were not so numerous as the others, were easUy picked out 

 by their greater size, their dark under-parts, and their 

 hoarse cry, uttered as they came up and swept round the 



95 



