210 The New British Sand-Grouse. 



the Birds of Asia. It is of much larger size than paradoxus, 

 being fifteen and a half inches in total length. It lacks the 

 prolongation of the wing feathers, and the black colour on the 

 breast ; the colouration being otherwise different. Dr. Adams, 

 of the 22nd Regiment, subsequently met with this species on 

 the Salt Lakes of Ladakh, in August, 1852. It has also been 

 observed by Captain Speke. 



Finally, great and good service has been done in ,the cause 

 of British Natural History by the Field newspaper, for the 

 history of the occurrences of the Syrrhaptes would have been 

 much less complete indeed, but for the notices which have ap- 

 peared from week to week in the natural history columns of 

 that journal. 



[Since the above was in print, the following important com- 

 munication has appeared in the Zoologist : — " This very beau- 

 tiful and interesting stranger was first observed and shot here 

 on the 2 1 st of May, the weather being very fine, with a moderate 

 easterly breeze. Each succeeding day, up to the earlier part of 

 June, it was seen here in flocks varying from about three, five, 

 fifteen to fifty, and in one or two instances even to a hundred. 

 Out of these nearly thirty have been shot ; the earlier birds 

 being, with two exceptions, all very fine male specimens, the 

 later nearly all female birds, every one of them in the most 

 perfect plumage. After a lapse of a fortnight, viz., on the 

 22nd of June, six sand-grouse again made their appearance ; 

 out of these five were shot, all female birds, whose plumage 

 no longer had that fresh and tidy appearance of the earlier 

 instances ; so that all through this abnormal and mysterious 

 excursion of this species, they still adhered to the rules of birds 

 on a regular spring migration, that is, the males forming the 

 van, the finest old specimens coming first, after which the 

 females make their appearance, and the rear being invariably 

 brought up by weak, badly-developed or injured individuals of 

 a shabby appearance." — H. GatJce, Heligoland, July, 1863, 

 " Zoologist," p. 8724.] 



