On the Irruption of Pallas' s Sand-Grouse in 1863. 185 



XVI. — On the Irruption of Pallas' s Sand-Grouse (Syrrhaptes 

 paradoxus) in 1863. By Alfred Newton, M.A., F.L.S., 



F.Z.S. 



(With a Sketch-Map— Plate VI.) 



For many reasons I should wish still longer to defer noticing in 

 the ' Ibis ' the Tartar invasion of which Europe was last year the 

 scene — an invasion which is certainly unparalleled in the annals 

 of ornithology, but chiefly because the record of observations is 

 still incomplete, especially on that side of the Continent first 

 reached by the wanderers. On the other hand, an account of 

 the irruption has been long promised to the readers of this 

 Journalj and having now collected a very large mass of intelli- 

 gence respecting it, I think I am in a position to place some of 

 the particulars before the public. Besides, it seems to me that 

 the more the late visitation of Syrrhaptes paradoxus is written 

 about and talked about, the more chance there is of gaining fresh 

 information concerning it. Knowing, then, that I am very far 

 from having exhausted the subject, but hoping still further to 

 excite the attention of ornithologists to it, I now attempt to 

 discharge the duty which our Editor has laid upon me. 



With the general history of this remarkable bird I presume all 

 the readers of the ' Ibis ' are pretty well acquainted ; for Mr. T. J. 

 Moore's excellent paper in our second volume (' Ibis,' 1860, pp. 

 105-110) contains, as I before have had occasion (P. Z. S. 1861, 

 pp. 203, 204) to remark, nearly all that was then to be said 

 on the subject. It is only necessary here to recapitulate that 

 the species was first brought to the notice of Pallas by Nicolas 

 Rytschof as a dweller on the Kirgish Steppes, which may be 

 taken as extending eastward from the northern half of the Cas- 

 pian Sea to the regions round Lake Balkach. In 1809 Professor 

 Fischer, of Moscow, received through the then Governor of 

 Irkoutsk, Von Treskine, two well-preserved examples of this spe- 

 cies from a much more eastern locality — the great steppes of Gobi 

 (Mem.Mosc. iii. p. 271)*. It was from a drawing and description 



* Fischer at once saw that the species ought not to be included iu the 

 Linnean genus Tetrao, and states that he communicated his views on this 

 point to Pallas, and subsequently (April 1810) to Temminck. Had he 

 then published his paper, his proposed name Nematnra would have taken 



VOL. VI. O 



