Possible trial areas include the short~-grass prairies and/or dry 
wheatland farming regions of the western Great Plains as found in 
eastern New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and the western parts of 
South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Suitable habitats 
also appear to be available seasonally in the hot or cold desert areas 
in and to the north and south of the Great Basin. Nesting might be 
expected to occur to the north in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Mon- 
tana and on dry uplands further south where scattered weeds and grass 
predominate. 
Taxonony and Distribution of the Subspecies 
Few groups of game birds have been beset with more general con- 
fusion, taxonomically, than has the sandgrouse. The feathered legs and 
feet of the Tibetan species together with other general resemblances to 
ptarmigan probably were the genesis of the name sandgrouse. Very early 
attempts to classify them in the grouse family soon gave way to a belief 
that sandgrouse are more closely allied structurally with pigeons and 
doves, The British Museum's Catalogue of Game Birds (29) states that 
the Pterocletes (pigeon-grouse) form a well-marked order intermediate 
between the Columbae (pigeons) and the Gallinae or true game birds. 
Currently Pterocletes is placed as a suborder under the Columbiformes. 
Sandgrouse are divided into two genera, Syrrhaptes and Pterocles. 
Imperial sandgrouse belong to the latter. Only one species, orientalis, 
and two subspecies, orientalis \?/ and koslovae » are generally 
recognized. Peters (31) lists a third subspecies, enigmaticus, from 
Kutch, India, as doubtfully distinct. Ripley (32) does not recognize 
enigmaticus and, following his classification, it is here considered 
as synonymous with koslovae. 
Order Columbiformes 
Suborder Pterocletes 
Family Pterocledidae 
Genus Pterocles 
Species P. orientalis 
Subspecies 
P. o. orientalis (a) Imperial Eastern Canary Islands, North Africa, 
sandgrouse Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Turkey, 
Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia 
P. o. koslovae () Southeastern Russia and southwestern 
Siberia from the lower Volga and the 
Caspian Sea east to Sergiopol, south 
to Alma Alta and Tashkent and south- 
wards to Iran, Afghanistan, West 
Pakistan and northwestern India. 
(a) Earlier called P, arenarius (29) 
(b) Dement'ev (15) calls this subspecies P. 0. arenarius 
23 
