PINTAILED SAND-GROUSE. 



Pterocles setarius, Temm. 

 Le Ganga Cata. 



The Pintailed Sand-Grouse is a native of the southern portion of Europe, the North of Africa, and the level 

 and arid plains of Persia ; it is also particularly abundant in Spain, Sicily, and through the whole of the 

 Levant, visiting at uncertain seasons, and in small numbers, the southern provinces of France. It is a bird 

 of migratory habits, and, like its congeners, prefers wild and barren districts where the poverty of the soil 

 affords but little inducement to the enterprise of man ; we are consequently unable to obtain any minute 

 details respecting its habits and manners. Its food consists of seeds, insects, and the tender shoots of vege- 

 tables. Its nest, says M. Temminck, is constructed on the earth among loose stones and tufts of herbage, 

 the female being said to lay four or five eggs, the colour of which is unknown. Nothing can be more beautiful, 

 or evince more evident marks of design, than the peculiarities which the great Author of Nature has bestowed 

 upon the birds that compose the great family Tetraonidce , or Grouse, as regards form and colouring in con- 

 nexion with their habits and mode of life. They are all more or less migratory ; but in those species which 

 nature has placed in countries where a luxuriant vegetation supplies them with abundance of food, we find a 

 rounded form of wing, and moderate power of flight, sufficient only to enable them to pass from one pasture 

 or heath to another. It appears also bountifully provided by Providence, that various birds inhabiting countries 

 where the seasons and surface of the earth in summer and winter present striking contrasts, should also 

 undergo a corresponding and analogous change of plumage; — thus, the different species of Ptarmigan of the 

 northern parts of Europe change their brown livery of summer, which accords so well with the colour of the 

 heathy hills they inhabit, to a pure white in winter, almost rivaling the spotless snow by which they are 

 then for a time surrounded. Their plumage also at this inclement season becomes thicker, and invests the 

 whole of the body even to the extremity of the toes. — If from this we turn to the bird before us, we find an 

 equal provision for its wants and mode of life, varied according to the almost opposite circumstances in which 

 it is placed. Not inhabiting moors or districts covered with verdure, but dwelling in extensive sandy plains, 

 with here and there only a patch of scanty vegetation, and where the season and soil preserve an almost 

 complete uniformity of temperature and appearance, greater powers of flight are required and bestowed ; the 

 wings are elongated and pointed, to enable it to pass with facility over immense tracts in its search after food 

 or water, or to change its situation from one district to another ; the colour of the plumage also remains 

 unchanged throughout the year, that it may ever assimilate with the sandy and stony soil where nature has 

 fixed its abode ; the nostrils remain unconcealed, and the tarsi (although exhibiting rudiments of down,) are 

 naked in comparison with the fur-clad feet of its northern relatives. The connexion which such changes 

 and such modifications of structure evince, in reference to the preservation and protection of the species, cannot 

 fail to suggest themselves to the understanding, and need not be insisted on. The colours of the male and 

 female of the Sand-Grouse differ considerably. In the male, the throat is black ; the cheeks light rufous ; 

 across the breast extends a band nearly two inches broad, of a rufous colour, edged above and below with a 

 narrow black line ; the head, neck, back and scapulars olive-green ; rump and tail-coverts barred with black 

 and yellowish ; the sznall and middle wing-coverts obliquely marked with chestnut and edged with white ; 

 greater coverts olive inclining to ash-colour, each feather being terminated by a black crescent ; the whole of 

 the under surface of a pure white ; the tail-feathers tipped with white ; the outer one on each side edged with 

 white also ; the two middle feathers are long, and pass gradually into slender filaments exceeding the rest by 

 three inches : length between ten and eleven inches, exclusive of the elongated tail-feathers. 



In the female, the throat is white ; below this a partial collar of black which reaches only to the sides of 

 the neck, with the broad orange band and black lines common to the male ; the whole of the upper part 

 barred with black, yellow, and ash-blue ; all the wing-coverts bluish ash ; the primaries have a band of red 

 and terminate with black bars ; the two elongated tail-feathers only exceed the others two inches. 



Young birds differ from both parents, in having the general plumage less varied. 



We have figured a male and female of the natural size. 



