532 PALLAS'S SANDGROUSE 



gallinaceous stock." x The sandgrouse are divided by most writers 

 into two genera, 2 Pterocles and Syrrhaptes. No member of the former 

 has as yet been recorded from the British Isles, although two species 

 are found in Spain, and are birds of powerful flight. The genus 

 Syrrhaptes is represented by one species only, the subject of this 

 paper. 



In the hand Pallas's sandgrouse can at once be distinguished 

 from any other bird on the British list by a glance at the feet. In the 

 first place they are feathered down to the nails on the upper surface : 

 the hind toe is altogether wanting, while the three front toes are 

 encased in a common "podotheca," which Newton compares to a 

 fingerless glove, and the under surface of which consists of a leathery 

 pad covered with small circular warts, closely packed together, from 

 which the three blunt nails protrude. The true home of this erratic 

 species lies in the deserts of Central Asia, its eastward breeding limit 

 being the steppes by the river Argun in Transbaikalia and Chinese 

 Mongolia, and extending thence over the vast desert of Gobi south to 

 the northern borders of China and westward through Dzungaria, the 

 Tian Shan district, and the Kirghis steppes in Turkestan. Of late 

 years it has also established itself in European Russia in the Ufa 

 government and Astrakhan, west to the Volga. Here it is either 

 resident or partially migrant, according to climatic conditions. There 

 are great differences in the winter temperatures of the elevated 

 plateaux and the more sheltered districts of these regions. In some 

 of the more exposed parts, the whole country is frost-bound and deep 

 in snow for three or four months in the year, while, on the other hand, 

 Mr. Carruthers found the Zarafschan valley good collecting ground 

 through the winter. The seasons also naturally vary in severity. 

 Thus in the winter of 1860-61 Swinhoe found this species extra- 

 ordinarily abundant on the plains between Pekin and Tientsin, so 

 that the market at the latter place was glutted, and birds could be 



1 P. E. Beddard, The Structure and Classification of Birds, p. 319. 



1 The pintail-sandgrouse has also been made the type of a third geuus (Pteroclurus) by 

 Bonaparte. 



