120 SECOND TARKAND MISSION. 



" Next day I saw three of these birds in waste ground, where a few stunted bushes were 

 growing ; they appeared to be yellowish brown above, the breast dove-colour, abdomen dark 

 or black, lower tail-coverts white. Another of these birds was seen on a subsequent occasion 

 in the desert, but this Sand-Grouse (as I believe it to be) was always so wild and wary, that 

 I could not manage to get within shot of it." 



275. Syerhaptes paradoxus. 



Syrrhaptes paradoxus, Pall.; Severtz. Turkest. Jevotn. p. 68 (1873); Dresser, Ibis, 1876, p. 322; Prjev. 

 in Rowley's Orn. Misc. ii. p. 382 (1877) ; Homeyer & Tancre, MT. orn. Ver. Wien, 1883,' p. 91 ' 

 Zarudn. Ois. Transcasp. p. 62 (1885). ' ^ • ^ 



No. 1699. East of Kizil, May 19, 1874. 



A female bird, which Mr. Ogilvie Grant thinks to be not quite mature. 



This may be the species seen by Dr. Scully near Besharik in August, which is called 

 ''BeghUah,'' as has been suggested by Mr. Hume in a footnote to ' Stray leathers,' vol iv 

 p. 139. 



Order GALLING. 



Family PHASIANIDiE. 

 Genus PHASIANUS. 



276. Phasianus shawi. 



Phasianus shawi, Elliot ; Scully, Str. F. iv. p. 179 (1876). 

 Nos. 948, 949, 6 S . Gtima, November 3, 1873. 

 No. 1071, 6 . Yarkand, November 24, 1873. 

 No. 1198, 6 . Maralbashi, January 1874. Sent by the King. 



Colonel Biddulph writes to us :— " This species frequents thick grass-jungle, and, accord- 

 ing to the natives, never roosts in trees, and I certainly saw it in places where there was no 

 tree to roost in. We first met with it ourselves at a place about 15 miles east of Yarkand. 

 We did not notice it anywhere en route to Yarkand, but at Oi-tograk specimens (in the 

 flesh) were brought in, said to have been killed near Giima, which is on the road to Khoten. 

 On the first march out of Yarkand to Kashghar we again shot specimens ; after that we found 

 it on the road from Kashghar to Maralbashi, at about 60 miles from the former place, and 

 thence on to Maralbashi. A few were in the jungle, but only where there were nullahs of 

 long grass. At Maralbashi, where there is a vast expanse of grass, it was very common. 

 They were, however, very wild and shy, and ran like fiends, only rising at considerable 

 distances as a rule, and as, besides this, it was almost impossible to retrieve them in the grass, 

 unless killed dead, I do not think I shot and bagged more than three in any one day ; but we 

 used to hawk them with what the people called ' Katchgais,' a Goshawk, I think. 



" As far as I could make out it occurs as far north, at any rate, as Aksu, generally all 

 over the nearly level, grass-jungle-clad basins of the Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashghar Eivers, 

 east of the road from Sanju to Kashghar. West of this we never met with it." 



