The Sand-Grouse. 
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t may nest there more often than has been supposed. It is commonly distributed 
throughout Europe and extends, in a slightly paler form, to Central Asia. 
It is easily recognised by the black spotting of the upper surface, which is of a 
ruddy brown colour, the greyish lower body and rump, the white tips to the tail- 
feathers, the vinous colour of the throat and breast, and the scaly patch of black and 
white feathers on the sides of the neck. The nest is a slight one of twigs, placed in 
an evergreen bush, or in a hedge, and well concealed. The eggs are two, creamy 
white, and measure about an inch-and-a-quarter in length. 
This eastern species, which inhabits the Peninsula of India 
and Burma, as far north as Manchuria and Japan, has been met 
with on one occasion, when a specimen was procured near 
Scarborough on the 23rd of October, 1889. 
It is a little larger than the common Turtle Dove, and has the colours rather 
darker, especially on the under surface, where the vinous colour of the breast 
overspreads the abdomen as well ; the band at the end of the tail-feathers is bluish- 
grey instead of white. 
THE ORIENTAL 
TURTLE-DOVE. 
( Turtur oricntalis.) 
The Sand-Grouse .— order Pterocletes. 
These birds have many anatomical 
characters which ally them to the 
Pigeons, but in appearance they are 
very like Game-birds, though they 
differ from the latter in their short 
legs and in the shape of the eggs, 
which are oval and distinctly double 
spotted. 
Only one species 
of Sand - Grouse 
has occurred in 
Great Britain, and 
this is a bird whose 
home is the steppes of Central Asia. 
Periodically, Pallas’ Sand-Grouse comes 
PALLAS’ 
SAND-GROUSE. 
(Syrrhaptes 
paradoxus.) 
Pallas’ Sand-Grouse. 
