ne ird intended to take up its residence here and become one of ou avifauna.,
passing visit, but that the bird 1 distant land receive? No sooner did it arrive worn ont
eee ee em ll ar its destruction ; the little flights were hunted to and
with fatigue, than numerous ee ae es 8 t driven we know not whither. What efforts have
ee moreccny de woole were. killed, and ee ee oses are we playing, when we are
the Acclimatization Society made to avert this? At what cross purp a : a
leavouring to introduce creatures from the antipodes without the most remote chance of success,
ae : i i bird as the Sandgrouse! Let those
while we neglect and defeat the spontaneous offer of Se ee : ae
wealthy proprietors who have sanctioned this new Society, and given i ns a ene a i
protection to our new friend as will at least give it the chance of establishing itse ' ee 3 : : ,
seasons would not be too rigorous for it is certain; for Mr. Swinhoe states that the bir cae the
plains between Peking and Tientsin, and that hundreds Bie captured after a fall of a ee me ets of
Tientsin, where it it called Sha-chee, or Sand-fowl, being fairly glutted with them. Huc, a 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 me, especially when mee ane
has fallen, flying with astonishing rapidity, so that the movement of their wings produces a noise like a
shower of hail.” as

The question will very naturally arise, Is our island otherwise adapted to this bird? In Se Boy
is not ; 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 of diet,
might be greatly improved ; at present I fear it would not be much esteemed.

A species of 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 of the members of the valuable present of many living
examples, by the Hon. James F. Stuart Wortley, to the Zoological Society should still be living. It is not
a little amusing to hear the remarks of some of 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 of the great watershed which
separates India and Persia from Tartary, and that the birds they have seen are the various species of the genus
Pterocles, whose feet are differently formed, and whose Wings are not so lengthened. The Indian and Egyp-
tian birds, it is true, beara general resemblance to each other ; but they are quite distinct. The home, then,
of the birds which have paid our shores a visit is in the Altai and the Kirghis Steppes of Tartary, the country
around Lake Baikal, and some parts of China. Here, on plains of grass and sandy deserts, at one season
covered with snow and at 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 that 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
ground with a laboured and uncertain step, like a Chinese lady in her boudoir.
The two sexes, as will be seen by the accompanying
said to be four in number, but this is doubtful, since M
laid by the members of the genus Prterocles, and that t
their deposit on the Danish Islands
The Plate represents a male,

as its flight is rapid and powerful ; it toddles over the

Plate, differ considerably in colour. The eggs are
r. Newton informs me that three is

the normal number
hree was the number

always found in the instances of
above alluded to,

a female, and three eggs, all of the size of nature.