224 
PIN-TAILED SAND GROUSE. 
P. exustus and P. Senegalensis , ‘‘very good eating, the 
flesh of the thigh especially being peculiarly white and 
tender. However our Dragoman was an artist of no 
ordinary culinary skill.” 
It is almost a pity, however, to talk about anything 
so sensuous as a dinner off a bird so beautiful as the 
Pin-tailed Sand Grouse. Mr. Tristram, whose experience 
as a practical ornithologist is very great, says, “I 
think, on close inspection, there is scarcely a bird in 
nature which surpasses the male P. alchata in richness 
of colouring or delicacy of pencilling” — a fact which 
I am sure my artist will verify with his usual skill. 
The adult male has the head, nape, and back, a 
beautiful rich dead olive green, more or less shaded 
with darker, each feather being edged narrowly with 
black or blackish. The upper tail coverts rich fawn, 
finely barred and pencilled transversely with black. 
The greater wing coverts lighter olive green, with a 
more decidedly marked black border, while the lesser 
wing coverts are of a rich maroon, distinctly bordered 
with white. Primaries grey, with black glossy shafts; 
secondaries grey, bordered with white; tertiaries dark 
brown, with white inner webs, and also distinctly 
edged with white. Tail feathers grey, barred with 
dusky, and shaded with fawn-colour on the outer web, 
while the extremity of each feather for about half an 
inch is pui’e white; the long filiform middle tail 
feathers partaking of the olive green colours of the 
back, while below they share with this aspect of the 
tail feathers their rich dark brown. Side of the 
head and a band across the crop, upwards of an inch 
broad, rich dark fawn-colour, the latter being edged 
above and below by a line of black, which separates 
it above from the light olive greenish brown neck and 
