48 THE LARGE OR BLACK-BELLIED SAND-GROUSE.
DIRECTLY IT begins to be at all hot, the large Sand-Grouse
leaves us. In 18C8, when the heat set in early, every bird had
left the neighbourhood of Sirsa and Fazilka by the end of
February ; and though, up in the cooler extreme north-west about
Peshawar and Mardan, I have known them to occur during the
first week of April, it is very rare to meet with them elsewhere
after the 15th March. About Sirsa, they never, that I know of,
appear before the 1st of October, and in warm years not before
quite the end of that month. Lower down in the Doab, as at
Etawah, they are scarcely, if ever, seen before the 15th of
November, or after the 20th February, though during December
and January considerable numbers may almost always be found
in suitable tracts to the south-east of that district.
Vast sandy plains, with water easily accessible, are what they
like, and wherever these occur in North-Western India, there
the large Sand-Grouse are sure to be found during the coldest
portion of the year.
The countless multitudes that occur in some seasons between
Ferozepore and Mooltan, on either side of the Sutlej, and
throughout Sirsa and Bahawalpur, are scarcely credible.
They go to some watering place regularly every morning, later
in the very cold weather, earlier as the temperature increases.
Driving, in November 1867, the last stage into Fazilka, from
Ferozepore, parallel to, and on the average about two miles distant
from, the Sutlej, over 100 flocks or parties of from four or
five to close upon one hundred each, flew over us during our
15 miles drive. They were all going to the river to drink or
returning thence. Necessarily we can only have seen an
exceedingly small fraction of the total number that that morning
crossed that little stretch of road.
Further inland, if I may use the phrase, where rivers are too
distant for them to resort to, they frequent, in this portion of
the Punjab, the few tanks that are to be found. Long before
the Sand-Grouse leave, most of these have dried up, and it often
happens that there are only two or three watering places left within
a radius of many miles. When this occurs, the native sportsmen
station themselves in ambush near these few places, and
slaughter multitudes, while fowlers catch them in nets or snares
laid at the water's edge. Khan Nizam-ud-din tells me i,and,
unlike most natives, what he says may be relied on) that he and
two European Officers, stationed one at each of three tanks,
bagged between them 54 brace one morning in two hours.
Ploughed land is a very favourite resort in the early mornings,
and there they squat basking in the sun's earliest rays, huddled
up so close together, and, where the party is large, in such dense
masses, that large numbers may be bagged with a couple of
charges of large shot, if one is only lucky enough to be able
to approach within 50 yards. In the Aligarh district, my old
shikari crept up to and shot every one of a party of seven
T H E L A R G E OR B L A C K - B E L L I E D SAND-GROUSE. 4Ç/
before me, and last year in Jodhpore I came upon fully two
thousand, grouped together in a clump little, if at all, more than
thirty yards long by ten wide ; and, though I did not get within
80 yards of them, I yet dropped three by two barrels into the mass
as it rose.
I have but seldom met with them on stubbles (though
they affect these a good deal, I hear, in some parts of the
country), or in any ground under crop, nor have I ever
found them on or about the more or less scrub-clad bases
of the low hills so common in Rajputana. Wide, open sandy
plains are their favourite resorts ; and, though they do sometimes
feed on bare ploughed lands, it is rare to find them on these
except when basking in the early morning or when taking
their mid-day siesta. This, like all the Sand-Grouse, they always
take when the sun is hot, though on cold, cloudy, gloomy days,
they are moving the whole day. They bustle about in the sand
or loose loam like old hens, until they have worked out a depression
that fits them, and then in this they sit a little on
one side, first with one wing a little under them and the
uppermost one a little opened, and then, after a time, they
shift over to the other side, so as to give the other wing
its turn of grilling. During their siesta they arc never closely
packed ; they are scattered about irregularly, one here, two or
three there, and so on ; and though at this time you may generally
by circling get within reach of them, they are by no means
all asleep, and the instant you halt or raise a gun, or fix your eyes
on any of them, the alarm note is sounded, and they are off
with a strong rapid flight, which most of us, at one time or
another, have found too much for the second barrel.
In parts of the country where they have not been shot at,
especially when they first arrive, you may easily approach within
thirty yards, shoot two or three on the ground, and perhaps a
couple more as they rise, but after having been worried a good
deal they become the wildest birds imaginable, and then the
only plan is to get them driven over you, which, with good
native fowlers, is almost a certainty, and affords at the same
time most difficult shooting and capital sport. It takes a
straight eye, No 3 shot, and a hard-hitting gun, to bring
down a clean-killed right and left out of a party going over you,
30 to 35 yards high, at the pace these birds can go.
It is not uncommon, particularly in the early part of the cold
season, to meet with party after party consisting of birds of one
sex only, but this separation of the sexes is by no means invariable
even in November and December, and is much less
frequently seen as the season advances.
If you watch a flock feeding, you will see that they observe
no order, but straggle about in all directions ; some individuals
continually fluttering up and alighting a yard or so away, and
every now and then a dozen springing up together, taking a