SAND-GROUSE. 23 



of the meat they stole ; but many hundreds of them 

 paid the penalty of their lives for their unceremo- 

 nious effrontery. 



The only other members of the feathered tribe 

 which we saw in the Gobi were the sand-grouse and 

 Mongol larks. Both these kinds are peculiarly cha- 

 racteristic of Mongolia. 



The sand-grouse [Syrrkaptes paradoxus),^ disco- 

 vered and described at the end of the last century 

 by the celebrated Pallas, is distributed over the 

 whole of Central Asia as far as the Caspian Sea, 

 and is occasionally met with as far south as Tibet. 

 This bird, called Boildurtc by the Mongols, and 

 Sadji by the Chinese, only inhabits the desert, where 

 it feeds on the seeds of different grasses (dwarf 

 wormwood, suihh'-, 8lc.), upon which it entirely de- 

 pends for food in winter. In the cold season vast 

 numbers flock together in the desert of Ala-shan, 

 attracted by the seeds of the sidJiir {Agriophylhim 

 Gobicuni), of which they are very fond. In summer 

 some of them appear in Trans- Baikalia, where they 

 breed. Their eggs, three in number, are laid on 

 the bare ground, where the hen bird sits staunchly, 

 although the bird is in ordinary circumstances timid. 

 In winter they are often compelled by the cold and 



^ Or Syrrkaptes Pallasii, allied to the Pterodcs to which the name 

 sand-grouse is, I believe, more usually applied, but with some curious 

 peculiarities. This bird, whose proper home is in the steppes of 

 North-Eastern Asia, and which is described by Marco Polo under the 

 name of Barguerlac (Turki Baghirtlak), visited England in con- 

 siderable numbers between 1859 and 1863, but has not since, I be- 

 lieve, renewed its immigration, so far from its natural habitat (see 

 Marco Polo, 2nd ed., i. 265, and the references there). — Y. 



