CHAPTER VII. 
THE SAND GROUSE 
(P ter odes arenarius ). 
“ But forget not, when praising the tribes of the air, 
To give to the bird of the desert his share : 
Though he warbles not in a verdant land, 
And is never leash’d to a lady’s hand.” 
Eliza Cooke. 
The number of birds which really inhabit the desert is 
very limited. Of these there are only two species which 
follow the camel as it enters that arid region, so remote 
from the outer world : they are the cunning Raven of the 
desert, and the Vulture; both may be regarded almost 
as birds of ill omen. They follow man miles into the 
interior, often as far as the first well or oasis, where they 
are replaced by other species. In the desert itself we only 
meet with small, active, cheerful little birds,—Stonechats, 
Coursers, Larks, and several members of the Gallinaceous 
family; all these bear the stamp of the land they live in : 
their colours usually assimilate to that of the sand, varied 
at the most with black or white; they are spread over a 
vast range of the sandy ocean, for food is scarce, and 
distributed over a large area; they show themselves true 
children of the desert in their habits and modes of life. 
The Sand Grouse is one of them, and is well worthy of 
our especial attention, inasmuch as it also belongs to our 
European Fauna, even to that of Germany itself: it is 
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