PALLAS'S SAND-GROUSE 



21 



Pallas's Sand- 

 Grouse 

 (Syrrhaptes 

 paradoxus). 



The long- tailed and short -legged birds, with a 



speckled plumage of fawn and black, commonly 

 known as sand-grouse form a small group in regard 

 to the affinities of which some difference of opinion 

 has obtained among ornithologists. From the close 

 correspondence of their bones and muscles to those of the pigeons, 

 they have been regarded as members of the same group as the latter. 

 They differ, however, from pigeons, and thereby resemble the game- 

 birds and pIo\-ers, in that their young are downy and active when first 



MOUNTED IN THE ROW 



WARD STUDIOS 



pallas's sand-grouse. 



hatched, and they agree with the latter in the great length of the blind 

 appendages of the intestine. Then, again, in their flight and mode of 

 drinking sand-grouse are unlike pigeons, from which they differ in that 

 their eggs are coloured and three in number, as in many of the plover 

 group. On the other hand, these birds resemble certain pigeons in 

 having the oil-gland without a tuft. Taking all these circumstances, 

 it is perhaps advisable to follow the usual fashion of regarding the 

 Pteroclidae, as the sand-grouse are technicallycalled, as the representatives 

 of a group of equal rank with the Gallins, or game-birds. For this 

 group the name Pterocletes should be adopted, unless we follow the 

 modern fashion of rendering the titles of all such groups unnecessarily 



