.Ill UMI ii Httl 



«s 



Pterocles arenarius, Pallas, 



Vernacular Names.— [Bfcut-titur, Buk-tit, Bur-titur (and a dozen other varia- 

 tions). Upper India ; Kashmiri, or Burra Bhatta, Haridna and Bhattidna ; 

 Katinga. Sind ; Bunchur, Peshawar ; Siah-sin (Persian), Khorasan ; Bagri- 

 kara (Turkish), N, Persia.'] 



o^r?? 



HE Large Sand-Grouse is essentially a western form, 

 and despite the countless myriads in which it occurs, 

 in most years, in parts of North-Western India, it is 

 merely a cold weather visitant, and breeds, so far 

 as I yet know, nowhere within the limits of the 

 Empire. 

 During the four coldest months of the year, it is to be found 

 throughout the Punjab, Rajputana, the Doab, Southern Rohil- 

 khand and Oudh, Bundelkhand, the northern portions of the 

 Central India Agency, Western Khandesh, Northern Guzerat, 

 the eastern portions of Cutch and Kathiawar, and Sind, 

 It is, however, in most years only really abundant in Northern 

 and Western Rajputana, and the Punjab west of Umballa ; 

 it becomes less plentiful as you proceed eastwards, and through- 

 out the eastern and southern portions of the tract above indi- 

 cated it is more or less rare, and towards its extreme limits a 

 mere accidental straggler. 



Westwards, it extends to the Canaries ; is common in Portugal 

 and Spain (straggling rarely into other parts of Europe), North- 

 Western and Northern Africa, Palestine, the Caucasus, Persia, 

 Western Turkestan and the country east of the Caspian, 

 Affghanistan, and Beluchistan. 



Although Scully recorded it doubtfully from Yarkand, I do 

 not believe that it occurs there or anywhere eastwards of this 

 in Central Asia ; the note he describes (S. F., IV, 179; was 

 clearly that of a Syrrhaptes and not of a Pterocles. 



Although, according to Jerdon, Col. Chesney saw this species 

 in millions in Arabia (by which Turkish Arabia, commonly 

 called Mesopotamia, must be meant), its occurrence there has not 

 been confirmed, and is the less likely that it has not yet been 

 observed in any part of North-Eastern Africa, to which, zoologi- 

 cally, Arabia is more closely allied than to Asia or Europe. In 

 all probability P. alchata was the species seen by Chesney. 



