Pallas' s Sand-Grouse in 1863. 187 



in the same year (1859), a pair of Syrrhaptes paradoxus are re- 

 ported to have been killed in the Government of Wilna *, on the 

 western frontiers of the Russian empire. 



It will be further recollected by my readers that, in May 1861, 

 we were pleased to hear that this species had occurred abun- 

 dantly during the previous winter on the plains between Pekin 

 and Tientsin, and on the banks of the river Peiho downwards. 

 As stated by Mr. Swinhoe in these pages (' Ibis,^ 1861, pp. 341, 

 342), numbers were caught in clap-nets, and exposed, alive or 

 dead, in the markets, so that the Anglo-French forces revelled 

 on them as cheap luxuries. It seems that they made their ap- 

 pearance about the beginning of November f in large bands, 

 and, I presume, the survivors of them stayed all the winter in 

 the neighbourhood ; but I can find no mention of their departure. 

 Several of the gentlemen engaged on the expedition brought 

 living examples to England. Mr. James Stuart- Wortley started 

 with seventy-three, and handed over thirty-four of them to the 

 Zoological Society. Captains Hand % and Commerell brought 

 some more (P. Z. S. 1861, pp. 196-198). Others were pre- 

 sented to the Queen by Captain Dyce, R.A. ; and a few besides, 

 I believe, passed into the possession of private persons. Of 

 those deposited in the Zoological Society's Gardens, the majority 



* I owe the knowledge of this fiict to Mr. J. H. Gurney, who kindly 

 sent me a copy of the ' Kolnische Zeitung,' No. 339, for 7th December, 

 1863, which contains a report of a Meeting of the Silesian Society " fiir 

 vaterlandische Cultur." I shall have occasion hereafter to quote from this 

 report, which, though containing some few misstatements, on the whole 

 appears to be very credible. Professor Grube is said to have brought the 

 subject of the irruption of Syrrhaptes before the Societj'. 



t Mr. John Hancock has been good enough to let me see a letter ad- 

 dressed to him by Captain Carr, R.A., in which that gentleman says that 

 the 10th November, being the day after he left Pekin for the south, was, 

 he believes, the first day he saw them, and that on the 16'th they were 

 being sold in great numbers in the streets of Tientsin. This also agrees 

 with, but is more precise than, Mr. James Stuart- Wortley 's statement to 

 Dr. ScUiter (P. Z. S. 186], p. 196). 



X Captain Hand identifies the Loung-Kio of Hue's Travels with Syr- 

 rhaptes paradoxus; and the Abbe's description, though, of course, extremely 

 untechnical, is not so vague as to leave me any doubt on the subject, ex- 

 cept that it might refer to the larger species, S. tibetauus of Gould. 



