Pterocles senegalus, Linne. 



Vernacular ITaiaeS-— [ Nandoo Katingo, Gutu, Sind.] 



^ITHIN our limits, the Spotted Sand-Grouse is 

 only common in Sind and Jeysulmere, but it 

 straggles eastward of this into the Punjab, 

 Rajputana, Cutch, Northern Guzerat, and Nor- 

 thern Kathiawar, in the neighbourhood of the 

 Runn ; never, however, so far as I yet know, occur- 

 ring east of the 73 E. Long. The most northerly 

 point from which I have received it is Shahpur on the Jhelum ; 

 the most southerly, Patri at the south-east corner of the lesser 

 Runn, and Nawanagar in Northern Kathiawar. I have it from 

 Pokaran in Jodhpore and from the Luni near the borders of 

 Jodhpore and Balmir. 



Except in the semi-desert portions of Sind, and possibly 

 Jeysulmere, it is only a cold weather visitant to India, and even 

 where, in Sind, some of the birds appear to be permanent 

 residents, the great majority of those met with in the winter 

 are, I believe, migrants. 



Beyond our limits, this species occurs in suitable localities in 

 the plains of Khelat, along the Mekran Coast, in Mesopotamia, 

 Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, Nubia, and Somali Land, but curious- 

 ly enough it has not been recorded from Abyssinia, in the low 

 coast lands of which it must occur. In the Libyan desert, 

 and, Ruppell says, the coast of Barbary, and in the extreme south 

 of the Sahara, it also occurs, but it is very doubtful if it extends 

 so far west as Senegal, and if it does not, it would have, according 

 to a certain school of writers, to take Lichtenstein's name of 

 gitttatus. 



Numerous as the Spotted Sand-Grouse are in certain locali- 

 ties in Sind, they are, as a rule, only met with within a compa- 

 ratively narrow zone ; that within which the inundation tracts 

 abut on the dry uplands, and cultivation and desert inoscu- 

 late. 



In the immediate neighbourhood of the hills themselves, 

 I never saw them, except in parties, coming up for a few 

 minutes to drink at some perennial stream, close to where it 



