ON THE SYSTEMATIC POSITION OF THE SAND 
GROUSE (PTEROCLES; SYRRHAPTES). 
R. W. SHUFELDT. 
THERE has been no question for many years past, in the 
minds of avian taxonomers, as to the general affinities of these 
birds. This opinion may be briefly stated by saying that the 
sand grouse constitute a small assemblage of forms, related on 
the one hand to the gallinaceous birds, and on the other to the 
pigeons. 
Some authors have relegated them to a distinct group, 
placing it in their schemes of classification between the fowls 
and the Columba. Huxley created the Pteroclomorphe for 
them, and Sclater, regarding them as a family, Pteroclide, 
placed them in the order Pterocletes, standing between the 
Columbae and the Gallinze, and in this he has been followed by 
Stejneger and others. Garrod, Fürbringer, and other authori- 
ties, again, have arrayed them with the pigeons. Numerous 
papers have been devoted to their osteology, but the best of 
these is doubtless the one given us years ago by William Kitchen 
Parker, in the Transactions of the Zodlogical Society of London 
(V, 149), where they are treated in his memoir entitled “On 
the Osteology of the Gallinaceous Birds and Tinamous." The 
plates to his memoir illustrate the skeleton of Syrrhaptes para- 
doxus, while in the text we have a more or less extensive com- 
parison of the osseous system of this species with that of 
Pterocles arenarius. Parker's figures are very helpful, and in 
addition to them I have examined some bones of Syrrhaptes 
loaned me by Professor Alfred Newton, F.R.S., and there are 
also at hand the mounted skeleton (see plate) and disarticu- 
lated one of Pterocles arenarius, belonging to the collections 
of the United States National Museum, and other material. 
One has but to glance at the skull of Pterocles to be satis- 
fied that the bird is not a pigeon, while, on the other hand, it 
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