948 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
refers this Fao specimen to a larger race ermanni (from Bokhara) but both these 
Mesopotamian specimens are well on the small size for this and are not larger than 
many Bombay birds. Weigold records camhayensis from Aleppo and Biredjik 
as common and resident. I have seen no specimens thenoe but Hartert (t. c.) 
gives Palestine as being inhabited by the typical race and almost certainly these 
Syrian birds belong also to this race and not to camhayensis; moreover the wing 
length given by Weigold (149-150 mm.) is much too large for this latter race. 
323. Spotted Sand-grouse. Pterocles senegallus. 
Plerocles senegallus {L.) (Mant. Plant. Regni. An App., p., 526 1771 
— “Senegallia”). 
The Spotted Sand-Grouse is common, and widely, but rather locally, distributed 
and is resident. It is not in most places so numerically abundant as alchata, and 
like the latter it is subject to local migrations in the country, due to exigencies of 
food, water and breeding ground. In most places the Large Pintail is the com- 
moner bird and with them may be found a few Spotted, or the latter are in small 
flocks by themselves ; at Nasariyeh however the reverse is the case and in this 
district the latter bird is abundant, the former scarce, as well shewn by a bag made 
there on August 25th, when 7 guns obtained 140 senegallus and only 10 alchata. 
So too in the triangle Baghdad-Feluja-Museyib senegallus would seem to be the 
commoner bird, while in the Kurna-Amara district it is rare. Until we know 
more about the food supply of these two birds their curiously patchy distribu- 
tion \\’ill remain obscure. 
A good many breeding localities are recorded; it evidently breeds in some num- 
bers along the edge of the Arabio-Syrian desert from Shaiba westwards ; it 
breeds also in numbers between Museyib and Baghdad (there being a very large 
colony about halfwaj’) and between Baghdad and Feluja; it breeds in the Samarra 
and Tekrit districts and in places, though no large colonies are reported, from 
there to Basra. So little has been recorded concerning the breeding of this bird 
that I will quote the notes sent by Logan Home in extenso: — “On June 18th I 
set out from Chunabdah (about 40 miles W. of Basra) at 4-30 a.m.; the sun rose 
at5a,m., I saw large numbers of Cursorius, P. alchata and a fair num- 
ber of senegallus. These all fed up to 7 a.m., when they commenced flying to 
water at the marsh edge six miles distant to the East. About 7-15 a.m. I saw 
a senegallus creeping through some small plants about 300 yards off, evidently 
having run off eggs. I sat down and watched it and in twenty minutes it had 
come back a bit and squatted. I gave it ten more minutes to make sure it was 
on its nest and then walked to the spot and found nil ! The bird ran off as soon 
as I stood up, although fully 300 yards away. I then moved to another position 
500 yards away on the other side of the spot. About 8-40 a.m., another sene- 
gallus, a female, flew in towards where I was lying, and settling within a 100 yards 
ran to a spot and squatted down. I watched it for 10 minutes ; then another, the 
male,came along from the direction of the marsh to the same spot and, when with- 
in 10 yards of the squatting bird, the latter rose and flew off to the water and the 
former ran on to the same spot and remained there. 1 then knew there must be 
eggs and walking to the spot I found a nest containing three eggs. The nest 
was merely a slight scrape in the hard soil on top of a stony plateau about 20 feet 
above the surrounding plain. Further on I saw another senegallus female 400 
yards away feeding; after 10 minutes watching she crept behind a small plant and 
squatted. The bird .sat until I was about 20 yards away (it then being very hot) 
and then crept off trailing her wings ; the nest contained 3 eggs. She stayed 
quite close for some time and only rose when I walked right up to her. 
From the above I gather that the male drinks first and then comes to relieve 
the female, which would appear to again relieve the male after drinking 
Logan Home also obtained eggs from Tekrit on June 10th and, judging by 
the number of scrapes in the ground and the birds seen, quite a number must 
