72 WILD I.IFI-: IN CHINA. 



is that the "Eastern Turtle-dove," as it is called, is rare in 

 this immediate neighbourhood, except perhaps in winter. I 

 have seen it at the hills, but the next province. Chekiang, is 

 the place where in winter I have found it most plentiful. 

 Sometimes it was called by sporting men the Hashing pigeon 

 to distinguish it from that better known at Shanghai. It is 

 somewhat bigger, too. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the pigeon family brings 

 forth only one or two young to a brood, a single pair has 

 been known to have a progeny of nearly 15,000 in four years, 

 counting, of course all their descendants within that time. 

 This fact, taken into consideration with the voracity of their 

 appetites, marks out the pigeon family as one to be kept 

 down when in the neighbourhood of man. Many years ago 

 an American observer estimated the number of passenger 

 pigeons forming one immense assemblage which he knew, 

 at well over two thousand millions, and allowing each of 

 them a daily half-pint of seed, far too little as I can testify, 

 he reckoned that they would consume more than seventeen 

 million bushels per day! In self-defence, then, man must 

 shoot, trap, and otherwise destroy as many of these birds as he 

 can. Necessity knows no law. And it would seem as if Nature 

 intended this to be done, for the pigeon being a first cousin 

 to the fowl family, is apparently designed as food for man. 

 At the proper season, therefore, pigeon shooting is as de- 

 fensible as the shooting of pheasants, partridges, grouse, and 

 others of the gallinaceans. Not pigeon-shooting from traps, 

 please take note! That has led to various atrocities. 



Few sportsmen would think of connecting any of the 

 grouse with the Cohimbidae. Yet they are somewhat closely 

 allied, the link being that extremely interesting bird, Pallas's 

 sand-grouse, Syrrliaptes paradoxns, with its swallow-like 

 wings and tail, and its occasional incursions into regions 

 where it is usually never seen. I have seen little flocks of 

 them in North Manchruia, but at times they have been known 

 to penetrate to the utmost extremes of western Europe. 

 There were incursions of them into England in 1863 and 

 1888, why or wherefore men were at a loss to account. They 

 came in the spring. Some people think that the Bible, in 

 some parts, for quail should read sand-grouse. Vast flocks 

 of them are seen together at times, and, as their name im- 

 plies, usually in districts of a more or less desert nature. 

 There are several species of them, one of which is a native 

 of Tibet. The Chinese have a belief that their irruptions 

 are often omens of coming political or dynastic change. 



Besides various structural peculiarities which connect 

 sand-grouse with the Columbidac, there is the quite uncommon 

 habit noticeable when both are drinking. Most birds dip the 



