passing visit, but that the bird intended to take up its residence here and become one o f our avifauna.
What reception did this stranger from a distant land receive ? No sooner did it arrive worn out
with fatigue, than numerous guns were levelled for its destruction; the little flights were hunted to and
fro until nearly the whole were killed, and the remnant driven we know not whither. What efforts have
the Acclimatization Society made to avert this ? At what cross purposes are we playing, when we are
endeavouring to introduce creatures from the antipodes without the most remote chance o f success,
while we neglect and defeat the spontaneous offer o f so interesting a bird as the Sandgrouse! Le t those
wealthy proprietors who have sanctioned this new Society, and given it their support, render as much
protection to our new friend as will at least give it the chance of establishing itself among us. That our
seasons would not be too rigorous for it is certa in ; for Mr. Swinhoe states that the bird winters on the
plains between Peking and Tientsin, and that hundreds are captured after a fall of snow, the markets of
Tientsin, where it is called Sha-chee, or Sand-fowl, being fairly glutted with them. Hue, in his ‘ Travels in
Tartary,’ when speaking of this bird, says:— “ This singular creature is called by the Chinese Loung-Kio,
that is, Dragon’s Foot. They generally arrive in great flocks from the north, especially when much snow
has fallen, flying with astonishing rapidity, so that the movement of their wings produces a noise like a
shower of hail.”
The question will very naturally arise, Is our island otherwise adapted to this bird ? In some respects it
is n o t; but there are certain barren tracts and sandy districts near the sea which would afford it a congenial
home, where it might breed, and whence, like the Dove-cote Pigeon, it might make raids on the corn-fields,
when a desire for a change of diet prompted it so to do, and by which means its flesh, as an article o f diet,
might be greatly improved; a t present I fear it would not be much esteemed.
A species o f such vast powers of flight, as we know this Sandgrouse to be possessed of, is no bird for the
aviary, and we may well be-surprised that any o f the members o f the valuable present o f many living
examples, by the Hon. James F. Stuart Wortley, to the Zoological Society should still be living. I t is not
a little amusing to hear the remarks of some o f the visitors respecting these birds. Like the person who
assured me he had seen a Humming-Bird in England, they think they have met with an old friend from
India or Egypt. Let me assure all such persons, that neither Pallas’s Sandgrouse nor the only other
known species of the genus, the Syrrhaptes Tibetanus, is ever seen south o f the great watershed which
separates India and Persia from Tartary, and that the birds they have seen are the various species o f the genus
Pterocles, whose feet are differently formed, and whose wings are not so lengthened. The Indian and Egyptian
birds, it is true, bear a general resemblance to each o th e r ; but they are quite distinct. The home, then,
o f the birds which have paid our shores a visit is in the Altai and the Kirghis Steppes o f Tartary, the country
around Lake Baikal, and some parts o f China. Here, on plains of grass and sandy deserts, at one season
covered with snow and a t another sun-burnt and parched up by drought, the Sandgrouse finds a congenial
home; in these inhospitable and little-known regions it breeds, and, when necessity compels it so to do, wings
its way, like the Bronze-winged Pigeon of the hot plains of Australia, over incredible distances to obtain
water or food. Its diminutive bill, small head, and little feet, when compared with its lengthened wings and
the very powerful pectoral muscles, clearly indicate th at space is as nothing to it, and that a journey to
Europe, when once willed, is easily accomplished.
The walk of the Syrrhaptes is as slow and feeble as its flight is rapid and powerful; it toddles over the
ground with a laboured and uncertain step, like a Chinese lady in her boudoir.
The two sexes, as will be seen by the accompanying Plate, differ considerably in colour. The eggs are
said to be four in number, but this is doubtful, since M r. Newton informs me that three is the normal number
laid by the members of the genus Pterocles, and that three was the number always found in the instances of
their deposit on the Danish Islands above alluded to.
The Plate represents a male, a female, and three eggs, all of the size o f nature.