Pallas' s Three-toed Sand-Grouse. 107 



familiar. On looking attentively in the direction from which it 

 proceeded, he observed three birds running about and pecking 

 among the drills, and making what he described as a " chat- 

 tering whistling'^ noise. • They were then all three together, 

 and, so far as he could observe, all three alike. Having for- 

 tunately, under a hedge near at hand, a gun with which 

 to shoot rooks from an adjoining potato field, he fetched and 

 loaded it. By that time two of the birds had gone some forty 

 yards further off. These he thought he could kill at one shot, 

 but to get near enough must have passed and alarmed the 

 single bird and pi-obably the others. He therefore wisely con- 

 tented himself with aiming at this, fired, and killed it. Having 

 only a single-barrelled gun, he could not get a shot at the other 

 birds, which flew swiftly away at a height of thirty or forty feet 

 direct eastward across the river into Merionethshire, effectually 

 preventing him from following them. Another man was work- 

 ing in the field at the time, but saw nothing of the birds imtii 

 the dead one was shown to him. Mr. Chaffers has since made 

 numerous inquiries, but has been unable to hear of any person 

 having observed them either before or after their appearance in 

 his field as related above. 



The Syrrhaptes j^uradowus, as already stated, was first made 

 known by Pallas, who described and figured it under the name 

 of Tetrao paradoxa *. It agrees with other species of Sand- 

 Grouse in its general form, in its lengthened wings, and in the 

 shortness of its feet ; but differs from them in the first primary 

 of each wing terminating in a long filament like the two central 

 tail-feathers of several species of Sand-Grouse. The most essen- 

 tial differences, however, are in the legs and feet. The legs, 

 instead of being feathered only in front, are entirely covered 

 down to the extremity of the toes with short dense feathers ; 

 the hind toe is wanting ; the toes in front are much expanded, 

 being united together throughout their length, and forming a 

 broad flat foot the sole of which is thickly covered with strong 

 horny papilhe : they are terminated by equally strong broad and 

 flattened nails. 



♦ See Pallas, Itin. ii. App. p. Ill, tab. F. ; Zoograph. Rosso-Asiat. ii. 

 p. 74. 



i2 



