PTEROCLETES. ( 155 ) PTEROCLID^. 



PALLAS'S SAND GROUSE. 



THKEE-TOED SAND GROUSE. 



Syrrhaptes paradoxus. 



The loveliest bird in Franguestan ! 



Byron, The Giaour. 



On the morning of the 25th of May 1888 my friend Mr. 

 William Evans telegraphed to me from Edinburgh that, as 

 several pairs of Sand Grouse had been recently seen in the 

 neighbourhood of Dunbar, the bird might be expected to 

 make its appearance in Berwickshire. I mentioned this in 

 Berwick Market to Mr. H. H. Craw, Eoulden West Mains, 

 on the afternoon of the same day, and asked him to be so 

 good as to let me know if any specimens should be noticed 

 in his neighbourhood. This he kindly undertook to do, and 

 in the course of a few hours a messenger from him came to 

 my house at Paxton with a cage containing a bird which 

 had just been caught by a boy on his farm while engaged in 

 rolling a field sown with barley. In the cage I found a 

 beautiful live Sand Grouse in full plumage, and at once 

 wrote to Mr. Craw suggesting that, to keep it alive, he 

 should feed it on small seeds, and that he should present it 

 to the Zoological Society of London. He accordingly for- 

 warded the bird to Dr. Sclater, whose address I supplied, 

 and I had the pleasure of seeing it in the gardens of the 

 Society in a thriving condition in the month of December 

 following. It was a female, and when captured by the boy 

 was so exhausted that it could not fly. It was said to 

 have been one of a flock of twelve which visited the farm 

 on the day mentioned. 



