THE SAND GROUSE. 
749 
indeed, reaching the heart of Germany, as far as Anhalt, 
as though to pay our naturalist, Naumann, a visit! 
When we describe the habits of one species, that 
information will suffice for all the others. 
The Sand Grouse inhabits steppes and deserts, and is 
only met with, on cultivated lands, during harvest time. 
Their favourite haunts are desert plains, amongst the 
dry, hard reed-grasses, and in uncultivated fields. In 
Spain they frequent similar localities, such as the 
“Campo,” a tract which may he called little else than a 
desert. They are rarely found singly or in pairs, but 
usually in large coveys or packs, numbering from fifty to 
a hundred individuals. As a rule, they soon discover 
themselves. When frightened the whole pack rises, flying 
easily, but making a strong rushing or whistling sound 
with their wings, while loudly uttering their call of 
“khata, khata, khata,” to which they owe their Arabian 
cognomen; they pursue their course for five or ten minutes, 
and then alight again. The Sand Grouse is shy only 
when it is much persecuted; in the heart of the desert, 
where the visits of men are few and far between, they allow 
the camel and its rider to approach within a few paces.* 
* The species which Mr. W. T. Blanford and I met with, on the coast region of the 
Red Sea, on our march between Ain, Amba, and Massouah (Pterocles Lichtensteini ), 
was not found in large flocks, but in small coveys of from five to six birds; at times 
they occurred in twos and threes, excepting when they came to drink at the springs, 
at which time, for the space of a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, they kept 
arriving and departing in coveys of perhaps eight to ten in number, following one 
another in almost a continuous stream, so that when the last rays of daylight had 
disappeared, and all had quenched their thirst, some hundreds must have visited 
the spring or water-hole during that short space of time. Their flight is the most 
rapid and uncertain of almost any bird I know : the velocity is something tremendous, 
and, as they will carry off a great deal of shot, they are not easy to bring down, 
especially in the dim twilight. Their flight resembles that of the “ Blue 
Rock” more than any other bird I can think of, and is, if anything, still stronger. 
When shooting in the daytime we often met with them, when they would lie so close 
as to allow us almost to tread on them. The march I here mention was undertaken 
in August, 1868.— W. J 
