I i i i i i i i i W l i l a i M i i®
Pterocles coronatus, Lichtewstein.
Vernacular Names.—[Katinga, sind.}
T is only on the extreme western confines of the
Empire, in the desert portions of Sind Trans-Indus,
that the Coronetted Sand-Grouse occurs within our
limits, and there only as a cold weather visitant, and
in small numbers. A single specimen has been killed
in the southern portion of the Dera Ghazi Khan
District, but I know of no other instance of its
occurrence outside the limits above indicated.
In the Cutchee of Khelat, and in Beluchistan, it is not very
rare, and Blanford obtained it on the Persian plateau. It has
also been recorded from Arabia, Egypt, Nubia, Kordofan, and
the southern portions of the Sahara, but its real area of distribution
is as yet very imperfectly defined.
I HAVE never myself seen this species alive, nor can I find any
single thing recorded of its habits, food, or the like. Heuglin
only tells us that in its voice and habits it precisely resembles
the Spotted Sand-Grouse.
TRISTRAM OBTAINED the eggs in the more southern portions
of the Sahara, where, he says, it supplants P. arenarms. He
adds : " I found it only in small companies of four or five, but this
may have been owing to the extreme scarcity of plants in_ the
district where it roams. The egg is of an ashy white, with a
few, almost obliterated, pale-brown markings."
MY FEW specimens measure in the skin:—
Length ; Wing; Bill at front ; Tail; Tarsus.
Males. i o - s t o n ' 7 ; 7-1107-23; o'58too'68; 3-3 to 3-75 o-gtoo-gs.
Female*. 10 to io'7 ; 7 to 7-15 ; 0-56 to o"66; 3'4 to 3-5 ; 09 to 0-93.
THE PLATE is rather a pretty picture ; an artistic idealization
and not a portrait, and therefore worthless for our
purposes, though the black markings about the head will probably
suffice for the identification of the male. In the male the
strongly-marked blue grey supercilium is scarcely indicated,
while as to the female, a dark-looking bird, densely banded with
black, or in some places brownish black, I can only suppose
that the artist began, but wholly forgot to finish, his picture.