PALLAS'S SAND-GEOUSE. 379 



species and the earliest records of its appearance in 

 Europe. "This species (says Mr. Newton) 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 

 Caspian 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 species from a much more 

 eastern locality — the great steppes of Gobi (Mem. 

 Mosc. iii., p. 271). It was from a drawing and 

 description of one of these birds, sent him by Fischer, 

 that Temminck (Hist. Pig. et GaUinac. iii., pp. 282—287; 

 took his account. In 1825, naturalists learned from 

 M. Drapiez (Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat. viii., p. 182) that 

 M. Delanoue had met with this species on the Chinese 

 frontier of the Russian empire." In 1853, Syrrhaptes 

 ^paradoxus is mentioned as a rarity by Herr Moschler 

 (Naumannia iii., p. 305) in a list of birds met with at 

 Sarepta on the Lower Wolga, which seems, according to 

 Mr. Newton's statement, " to be the earliest authentic 

 record of its actual occurrence in Europe," although 

 its name was included by Prince C. L. Bonaparte in his 

 '* Geographical and Comparative List of the Birds of 

 Europe and North America," as far back as 1838. The 

 same author, however, in 1850, again omits it from 

 another list, " Conspectus Avium Europsearum," pub- 

 lished as an appendix to to his ^^Eevue Critique de 

 rOrnithologie Europeenne de M. Degland." 



To the several specimens next in order of date, which 

 occurred in Western Europe in 1859, I have abeady 

 referred, and I may here add, on the authority of my 

 friend Mr. Swinhoe, and other consular and mihtary 

 ofB.cers engaged in the North China campaign, that in 

 the winter of 1860 this species occurred in great abun- 

 dance on the plains between Peking and Tientsin, 

 3c2 



