[§ 
SYRRHAPTES PARADOXUS. ab. 
2870. One.—Near Ringkjobing, Jutland, 6 June, 1863. 
From Professor Reinhardt. 
Karly in June, 1863, Herr Biilow, a Custom-house officer at Ringkjébing, 
sent Professor Reinhardt several living birds of this species which had been 
snared on their nests by a gunner in that neighbourhood, together with four 
of their eggs. One of the latter was found by Ilerr Biilow in the box which 
conveyed the birds to him, having been laid on the journey. It was colour- 
less, indicating that it had been prematurely produced. The other three, of 
which this is one, were fully coloured. It appears that this gunner found two 
nests of Syrrhaptes, while a third was found by a neighbour of his near 
Bjerregaard, and on two of these nests both the birds (in each case the hen 
first and then the cock) were snared. AI! these nests were on the sand-hills not 
far from the sea. Two of them were near one another; and one, containing 
three eges, was merely a slight deepening in the sand lined with a little dry 
marram. The other had only two eggs, was placed among some ling, and was 
likewise furnished with a little dry grass. The third nest was like the first, 
and also held three eggs, but was at some distance and halfway up a sand-hill. 
Of the three mature eges sent to Herr Bulow, he found that two were quite 
fresh, but in the third the embryo had just begun to form, shewing that they 
were not all from the same nest. More nests were found by other people, but 
unfortunately no care was taken about them. Later in the year, near the end 
of July, the same gunner found two other nests, taking both as well as the 
old birds. Professor Reinhardt was kind enough to send me one of the eggs 
from one of the first nests found, but which it was he did not know. He was 
further so good as to furnish me with these details, of which I availed myself, 
printing them in ‘The Ibis’ for 1864 (pp. 195, 196), in anticipation of the 
publication of the excellent account which he himself contributed to the 
Natural History Union of Copenhagen (Naturhist. Foren. Vidensk. Meddelelser, 
1863, pp. 219-221). | 
2871. Two.—Shu River, Turkestan, 1 May, 1887. From 
Mr. W. H. Bateson, 1888. 
Mr. Bateson, whose attention I had especially directed to this species, 
before he set out on his travels in Central Asia, was good enough to give me 
with these specimens the following notes :— 
“ §. paradovus is very common about Kazalinsk, and on the steppe of the 
Shu River. We met quantities of them on the shores of the Lake Balkash, 
but none were seen on the grassy hills north of the lake nor on any part of 
the grassy steppes of Semipalatinsk and Western Siberia. I never saw any near 
Irghiz, which is in sandy country, though they were common some fifty miles 
to the south, where the Artemisia-covered steppe begins. Between Kazalinsk 
and Turkestan there were great quantities on the post-read, picking about 
among the horse-dung. 
“The nests were very common in the steppe of the Shu, being mostly little 
depressions among the tufts of -drtemusca, lined with a little loose chaff. 
