MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
809 
species, but got no nests or eggs. Numerous smooth hollows in the ground 
hereabouts however were filled with convoluted droppings which I suspect to 
be those of this species. Xlieir number seems to suggest that the birds may 
sleep, as the Common Em’opean Partrige is said to do, in parties heads outwards, 
tails inwards, for purposes of protection, but it is a point which I have not veri- 
fied by personal observation. The nesthngs were aUve on the 10th April, and 
the man in charge of them, who has much to do with the care of domestic fowls, 
reported that they were doing satisfactorily, though he had to feed them by hand 
still. I then had to go away for several days and was distressed to find on my 
return that both had died. The precocity of the Sandgrouse and their congeners 
among “ nidifugous ” birds is well-known. I should imagine that these young- 
sters were a week to ten days out of the egg when we fovmd them. 
The place where our find was made is not less than 30 miles from the River 
Indus, which with the jheels and ponds near it, is where our winter species drink. 
This bears out what Stuart Baker has to say about the distance these birds 
breed away from water. How then are the young birds given the liquid they 
require ? A recent book of a type more scientific than it affects to be, viz., 
Pycraft’s “ History of Birds,” says that the parent Sandgrouse, after slaking 
their own thirst at distant water, wallow till their under-plumage is laden with 
water, which they are able to convey, after the long return flight, to their 
yoimg. Regurgitation, as with other kinds of birds, is perhaps a means of 
providing liquid or food of a semi-hquid kind. 
A last point for notice is that the chicks were able to give the call-note of the 
species, — which may be rendered “whit-hu", perfectly. It is not difficult for a 
human to mimic, and I could get the yoimgsters to answer me when I tried it 
on them. Stuart Baker gives the Sindi name as Gutu, which is no doubt ono- 
matopoeic hke the Vernaciflar names for the commoner kinds of Sandgrouse 
that I am familiar with in the Punjab. 
Dera Nawab N. W. R., R. C. BOLSTER. 
Bahawalpur State, 
19th April 1922. 
No. XV.— CROCODILE SHOOTING AND SNARING. 
( With a plate. ) 
Mr. Shortt’s good article was enjoyable reading. 
My own shooting has been confined entirely to Sind, and to crocodile in 
jheels, “ dunds ” we call them here. A year ago I spent a week at a group of 
“ dunds ” in the neighbourhood, they were full of mugger, but the beasts 
diffieult to shoot as the shores in most places were open maidan, with no 
cover excepting where too thick to penetrate. All the shooting had to be 
done on the same side, as the crocodile stalked was lying, as the water was 
too wide to fire across. As a result of some years’ experience at this sort 
of shikar, I have formed certain theories, and my methods of stalking are 
based on these. 
The occasion here related was the first shoot of sufficient length I had had, 
to give my methods a really good test. 
I may first of all say that I have never been successful in approaching mugger 
over open ground unless the wind was in my favour, excepting for odd 
animals sound asleep. I have frequently noticed that sheep, goats and cattle, 
however much noise they made when feeding naturally, and not galloping 
about in fright, never sent mugger into the water. I found that by getting 
on to my hands and knees at a long distance from the mugger, and appoaching 
