LS6G. 1870.
September 1st, 2nd, 3rd. 7111, iotli.
October 3RD, 22nd.
November 24th.
December 7U1, 20lh,
In some- cases three nests were found in a single day.
During these two years he sent me so many eggs that I begged
him to collect no more, and so after 1870 these eggs are never
mentioned.
To quote an abstract I made of his register for 1869 : " In no
case did he find more than three eggs in one nest. In one
instance he obtained five eggs in one spot—three in one place
and two about 3 inches distant—but he ascertained that these
belonged to two different pairs. Fully half of these eggs were
found in fallow fields ; the rest in bare waste-land or desert-like
sand. In only two cases were the eggs found in any way
sheltered or hidden in the roots or tufts of grass. In every case
the eggs were laid in a slight depression on the bare ground.
No nest of any kind was met with."
This has also been my own experience, except that I have
not at all unfrequently found the eggs more or less sheltered by
low bushes, tufts of grass, or large clods.
Mr. William Blewitt says: " On the 9th March in a field
in the Hissar District, I found a nest of this species containing
five (!) almost fully incubated eggs. They were, as
usual, placed on the bare ground in a shallow basin scratched
out by the birds, some 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches in
depth. They all belonged, I believe, to one pair, but in no
other instance did I ever meet with more than three eggs in
any nest."
I may note here that the Khan Sahib reported that, although
lie had never been able to meet with such a nest, the villagers,
in localities where the birds were very common, said that they
occasionally saw four eggs in one nest-hole.
From the Sambhar Lake, Mr. R. M. Adam writes:" The
Common Sand-Grouse is found here throughout the year in
great numbers. It breeds here, and I have taken the nests in
April and May,
" I have seen a nest here at the root of a tuft of sarpat grass,
the leaves of which protected the bird from the sun's rays. The
nest had a lining of loose pieces of grass, and contained three
eggs."
This is another instance of the variable habits of this species.
I must have taken at least thirty nests, the Khan Sahib fully
double that number, and neither of us ever saw any sort of lining
to the nest-hole, and yet not only Mr. Adam, but other good observers,
have vouched for finding more orless of a grass lining
on many occasions.
Captain Cock tells me that " the Common Sand-Grouse lays
its eggs in a hollow amid loose stones (I speak of the ervirons of
T H E COMMON SAND-GROUSE. 75
Nowshera) in the months of May and June, usually on barren
arid ground, the heat of which is terrible at that time of year.
I have frequently found the eggs with their albumen semicoagulated
from the heat, and I fancy that, if the bird left its
eggs for any time during the heat of the day, they would be
baked!
"They lay three eggs, blunt at both ends. There is no nest
to speak of, only a bit of stick or two."
Mr. A. Anderson remarks: "The Common Sand-Grouse breed
throughout the Doab in March, April, and May (and no doubt
later on), laying the orthodox number of three eggs, and never
four, as stated by Jerdon. As a rule, there is no attempt at anything
like a nest, the eggs being deposited in a slight depression
on the bare ground scraped out by the birds, most frequently
in an extensive plain.
"At times they lay only a pair of eggs. On the 2nd March
1873, when roaming over a plain covered for miles with rch*
which gave the ground the appearance of being carpeted with
crisp snow, I flushed a Sand-Grouse which flew \\\> perpendicularly
out of sight. Looking down, I found a pair of eggs, which were
laid parallel to each other in a slight hollow, sparingly lined
with dry grass stems. My camp being close to this place, I
amused myself in watching the birds incubating, feeding round
about their nest, and dusting themselves after the fashion of
fowls. On the 4th (there being still only two), I removed the
eggs, shooting the sitting bird, which proved to be the male.
As I approached the nest, the bird glided off, and skulked away
in a crouching posture, so as to avoid detection, and then
squatted.
"On the 19th October last, my friend Mr. Hastings took a
clutch of eggs at Etdwah, which he sent to me; these eggs were
either unusually late or early, as the case may be."
" In the Deccan," writes Mr. Davidson, " it breeds from December
to June, eggs having been found by me in all the intervening
months. I have never found more than three, or less than two,
eggs, and three is the general number."
The eggs, like those of all the other Sand-Grouse, are long and
cylindrical, like those of a Night Jar. The texture is fine and
smooth, and they have generally a fine gloss. Not only in shape,
but in markings also, do many of them strongly resemble those of
some species of Night Jar. The ground colour varies much ; in
some it is a pale somewhat pinkish stone colour, in others greyish
or dingy greenish white ; in some pale café an lait, in others a
somewhat light olive brown. Typically they are thickly spotted,
streaked, or irregularly blotched, pretty uniformly over the
whole surface, with two sets of markings, the one of darker or
lighter shades of olive brown, the other a sort of pale inky
A saline efflorescence, of varying composition.