Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/278

Rh 258 S A N S A N The eyes are lateral and of moderate size ; the dentition is quite rudimentary. Sand-eela are small littoral marine fishes, only one species attaining a length of 18 inches (Ammodytes lanceo- latus). They live in shoals at various depths on a sandy bottom, and bury themselves in the sand on the slightest alarm. They are able to do this with the greatest ease and rapidity whilst the bottom is covered with water. Many of those which live close inshore are left by the receding tide buried in the sand, and are then frequently dug out from a depth of one or two feet. Other shoals live in deeper water ; when they are surprised by fish of prey or porpoises, they are frequently driven to the surface in such dense masses that numbers of them can be scooped out of the water with a bucket or hand-net. In fact, this used to be, in the Channel Islands, the common practice of the fishermen to provide themselves with bait. Some species descend to a depth of 100 fathoms and more ; and the greater sand-eel is not rarely taken on the mackerel line far out at sea near the surface. Sand-eels are very rapacious, destroying a great quantity of fry and other small creatures, such as the lancelet (Branchiostoma), which lives in similar localities. They are excellent eating, and are much sought after for bait. Sand-eels are common in all suitable localities of the North Atlantic ; a species scarcely distinct from the European common sand-launce occurs on the Pacific side of North America, another on the east coast of South Africa. On the British coasts three species are found : the Greater Sand-Eel (Ammodytes lanceolatus), distinguished by a tooth-like bicuspid prominence on the vomer ; the Common Sand-Launce (A. tobianus), from five to seven inches long, with unarmed vomer, even dorsal fin, and with the integu- ments folded ; and the Southern Sand-Launce (A. siculus), with unarmed vomer, smooth skin, and with the margins of the dorsal and anal fins undulated. The last species is common in the Mediterranean, but local farther northwards. It has been found near the Shetlands at depths from 80 to 100 fathoms, and is generally distinguished from the common species by the fishermen of the Channel Islands, who have a tradition that it appeared suddenly on their coasts some fifty years ago. SANDEMANIANS. See GLAS, vol. x. p. 637. SANDERSON, ROBERT (1587-1663), bishop of Lin- coln, and one of the worthies celebrated by Izaak Walton, was born at Rotherham, Yorkshire, in 1587. He was edu- cated at the grammar school of his native town and at Lincoln College, Oxford, took orders in 1611, and was promoted successively to several benefices. On the recom- mendation of Laud he was appointed one of the royal chaplains in!631, and as a preacher was a great favourite with the king. In 1642 Charles created him regius pro- fessor of divinity at Oxford, with a canonry of Christ Church annexed. But the civil war prevented him until 1646 from entering on the office; and in 1648 he was ejected by the visitors whom the parliament had com- missioned. He recovered these preferments at the Restora- tion, and was promoted to the bishopric of Lincoln, but lived only two years to enjoy his new dignities, dying in his seventy-sixth year in 1663. His most celebrated work is his Cages of Conscience, deliberate judgments upon points of morality submitted to him. Some of these cases, notably that of Sabbath observance, and that of signing the " En- gagement" to the Commonwealth, were printed surrepti- tiously during his lifetime, though drawn up in answer to private spiritual clients; and a collection, gradually enlarged in successive editions, was published after his death. They are extremely interesting specimens of English casuistry, distinguished not less by moral integrity than good sense, learning, and close, comprehensive, and subtle reasoning. His practice as a college lecturer in logic is better evidenced by these "cases" than by his Compendium of Logic published in 1615. A complete edition of Sanderson's works was edited by Dr Jacobson in 1854 (Oxford Press). To this the reader may be referred for his sermons and his occasional tracts on public affairs during the troubled period of his middle life and old age. SAND : GROUSE, the name 1 by which are commonly known the members of a small but remarkable group of birds frequenting sandy tracts, and having their feet more or less clothed with feathers after the fashion of GROUSE (vol. xi. p. 221), to which they were originally thought to be closely allied, and the species first described were by the earlier systematists invariably referred to the genus Tetrao. Their separation therefrom is due to Temminck, who made for them a distinct genus which he called Pterocles, 2 and his view, as Lesson tells us (Traite, p. 515), was subsequently corroborated by De Blainville ; while in 1831 Bonaparte (Saggio, p. 54) recognized the group as a good Family, Pediophili or Pteroclidac. Further investiga- tion of the osteology and pterylosis of the Sand-Grouse revealed still greater divergence from the normal Gallinx (to which the true Grouse belong), as well as several curious resemblances to the Pigeons ; and in the Zoological Society's Proceedings for 1868 (p. 303) Prof. Huxley pro- posed to regard them, under the name of Pteroclomorpha-, as forming a group equivalent to the Alectonm&pka and Peristeromorphx, for reasons already briefly stated (ORNITHOLOGY, vol. xviii. p. 46). 3 The Pteroclidse. consist of two genera Pterodes, with about fifteen species, and Syrrhaptes, with two. Of the former, two species inhabit Europe, P. arenarius, the Sand-Grouse proper, and that which is usually called P. alchata, the Pin-tailed Sand- Grouse. The European range of the first is practically limited to Portugal, Spain, and the southern parts of Russia, while the second inhabits also the south of France, where it is generally known by its Catalan name of " Ganga," or locally as " Grandaulo" or, strange to say, l( Perdrix d' Angleterre." Both species are also abundant in Barbary, and have been believed to extend eastwards through Asia to India, in most parts of which country they seem to be only winter-visitants ; but in 1880 Herr Bogdanow pointed out to the Academy of St Petersburg (Bulletin, xxvii. p. 164) a slight difference of coloration between eastern and western examples of what had hith- erto passed as P. alchata ; and the difference, if found to be constant, may require the specific recognition of each, while analogy would suggest that a similar difference might be found in examples of P. arenarius. India, more- over, possesses five other species of Pterocles, of which however only one, P. fasciatus, is peculiar to Asia, while the others inhabit Africa as well, and all the remaining species belong to the Ethiopian region one, P. personatus, being peculiar to Madagascar, and four occurring in or on the borders of the Cape Colony. The genus Syrrhaptes, though in general appearance resembling Pterocles, has a conformation of foot quite unique among birds, the three anterior toes being encased in a common "podotheca," which is clothed to the claws with hairy feathers, so as to look much like a fingerless glove. The hind toe is wanting. The two species of Syr- rhaptes are S. tibetanus the largest Sand-Grouse known inhabiting the country whence its trivial name is derived, and S. paradoxus, ranging from Northern China across Central Asia to the confines of Europe, which it occa- 1 It seems to have been first used by Latham in 1783 (Synopsis, iv. p. 751) as the direct translation of the name Tetrao arenarius given by Pallas. 2 He states that he published this name in 1809 ; but hitherto re- search has failed to find it used until 1815. 8 Some more recent writers, recognizing the group as a distinct Order, have applied to it the name " Pterodetes," while another calls it Heteroclitse. The former of these words is based on a grammatical misconception, while the use of the latter has long since been other- wise preoccupied in zoology. If there be need to set aside Prof. Huxley's term, Bonaparte's Pediophili (as abov mentioned) may be accepted, and indeed has priority of all others.