164 



HARD WICKE ' 6" 6" CIE NCE- G SSI P. 



but of course not to the outside anywhere. The 

 remedy, however, is not a pleasant one when applied 

 in my method ; it would be better if the paste 

 employed in binding were itself so poisoned. As 

 the larvae do not attack unbound papers, stitched or 

 wired magazines, &c, it seems fairly safe to infer 

 that it is the paste which proves attractive, and that 

 it should be poisoned with some drug which will 

 retain its toxical properties in sufficient strength to 

 destroy the young larvae as soon as they touch it. 

 I have had books attacked in the course of one week. 

 The point to be remembered is that it is the newly- 

 bound volumes which suffer ; old books escape. — 

 IV. y. Simmons, Calaitta. 



Development of the Gnat. — Errata, page 133. 

 The following figures should be transposed: — Fig. 55 

 should be 56 ; Fig. 56 should be 55. 



Pallas's Sand Grouse {Syrrhaptes paradoxus). 

 Six specimens of this rare and remarkable bird were 

 killed from a large flock in the neighbourhood of 

 Fyvie on the 26th of May ; they had been seen for 

 some time previous in small and in large flocks. 

 Being natives of the far east, they have probably 

 been driven here by stress of weather, and are now 

 seeking breeding-ground. It would be very interest- 

 ing to know if they should remain to breed, being 

 unknown in the British Isles before 1859. — IV. Sym, 

 Fyvie. 



Irruption of Pallas's Sand-Grouse. — Mr. W. 

 Eagle Clarke, F.L.S., the senior assistant in the 

 Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, writes as 

 follows to the "Naturalist": — "Once more, after 

 an interval of a quarter of a century, Europe and the 

 British Isles are the scene of an irruption of Pallas's 

 sand-grouse {Syrrhaptes paradoxus, Pall.), large flocks 

 of which, leaving their home in the Steppes of 

 Central Asia, have been making their way westward 

 during the past month or two. On the 21st of April 

 they appeared in various localities in Poland ; on the 

 27th, they reached Saxony ; on the 5th of May they 

 were seen in the island of Riigen, and on the 7th in 

 Holstein. They reached England about ten days 

 later. On the 17th of May a specimen was brought 

 in the flesh to me at the Leeds Museum, which was 

 said to have been shot in Dewsbury Road, Leeds. 

 On the 1 8th Mr. Philip W. Lawton saw five at 

 Shurn, and the same day (as Mr. Lawton informs 

 me) a man at Patrington saw a party of about a 

 score. Since then Mr. Lawton has had numerous 

 examples brought to him for preserving. On the 

 19th, Mr. Donkin saw a party of twenty in a field 

 adjoining the Ardsley reservoir, near Leeds. On the 

 20th large flocks, as reported in the newspapers, 

 were seen in Oxfordshire, and at Hoddesdon, in 

 Hertfordshire ; and others, the date of which I have 

 not seen noted, were reported from Clifton, Notting- 

 hamshire. On the 24th, Mr. Thos. Bunher wrote me 



that one had been captured alive near Goole, and on 

 the same date Mr. Frederick Boyes, of Beverley, 

 wrote me that about fifty or sixty had been seen at 

 Flamborough, and that Mr. Harper, of Scarborough, 

 had called to tell him that he had seen about thirty 

 at Spurn. In a note in "The Field" of May 26th, 

 Mr. Boyes remarked that these birds appeared on 

 the east coast of Yorkshire on the anniversary of the 

 day on which they were first observed a quarter of a 

 century ago, and that a flock seen on the 20th, at an 

 East Yorkshire locality, the name of which he does 

 not give, contained at least a dozen birds. In the 

 same note he states further, that a friend saw about 

 thirty at Spurn on the 25th of the month. On the 24th, 

 one was telegraphed on the Boroughbridge Read, near 

 Norton-le-Clay, and eight others are said to have been 

 seen in the neighbourhood. As it is desirable that an 

 ample record should be kept of this most noteworthy 

 and interesting ornithological event, I hope all readers 

 who have it in their power will communicate to this 

 journal full details and particulars to such occurrences 

 in Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lincoln 

 shire, Nottinghamshire (including the details of the 

 Clifton instance), Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, 

 Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the Isle of Man, as 

 may come within their observation." 



BOTANY. 



A May Ramble at Prinsted. — Unpromising 

 localities sometimes reward the explorer in unexpected 

 ways and delight him with the sight of plants little 

 anticipated. Prinsted Common, at the western ex- 

 tremity of Sussex, appears to have been long ago 

 reclaimed from the sea, which still occasionally makes 

 inroads upon it. Flat and of small dimensions, there 

 is little to interest in its immediate scenery, excepting 

 the distant S. Downs and the intermediate spires 

 of Chichester Cathedral and that of the ancient 

 church of Bosham ; but the tract itself, an expanse of 

 sward, surrounded by banks, contains a very varied 

 flora. Among the Cerastiums largely predominates 

 C. tctrandriun with its fine white blossoms inter- 

 mingled with abundance of Mccuchiaerecta. The turf 

 is decked with Trifolium subterraneum, T. minus, and 

 T. filiformc ; and occasionally patches of Trigonella 

 ortiithopodioides are to be seen. One of the banks 

 presented at intervals quantities of the pale pinkish 

 petals of Cochlearia Danica, which in hue differs so 

 much from its congeners as to be easily recognisable, 

 not to speak of its deltoid leaves. Near it amongst 

 the grass also appeared an unexpected little plant 

 Myosurus minimus, of various size, from half an inch 

 (in full tlower) to six or seven inches in height. Most 

 botanical records mention it as growing in fields or 

 gravel pits, but here it seems to delight in a different 

 situation, and it appears to be sporadic, for a year 



