290 The Scottish Naturalist. 



Perth, in the winter of 1860-61, and came into the possession 

 of Dr M'Intosh, who has kindly presented one of them to 

 the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. 



Crossbill. — These I have not noticed of late ; but as previously 

 mentioned, they appeared in enormous numbers in all this 

 district in 1838. 



A??ierica?i White- Winged Crossbill. — About six or seven years ago, 

 what I took to be these birds were seen by me in the Kin- 

 fauns -woods, in a small party of six or seven ; but I was 

 unable to obtain a specimen. 



Turtle-dove. — These birds I have noticed more than once in the 

 Carse of Gowrie ; and the summer before last three flew past 

 me near Murie. The bird is too well known to me to have 

 mistaken it. 



Spotted Crake. — Frequent examples of this little Crake have been 

 seen by me on the banks of the Tay in autumn, one of 

 which is now in my possession. 



Solitary Snipe. — One example of this bird was seen by me on the 

 banks of the Tay on the 3d September 1874 — the only one 

 I have ever seen in Scotland. 



Purple Waterhen i^Porphyrio s??iaragdo?iotus). — Among other water- 

 birds, one specimen of this Porphyrio was obtained two 

 years ago on the banks of the Tay. See Scot. Nat., vol. iv. 

 p. 87, 1877. 



I may also add the Quail as an occasional visitant. Formerly 

 it was of 7'egular migration in the Carse of Gowrie, where it bred. 

 The last nest known to me was in the garden-hedge at the Manse 

 of Errol, in the summer of 1832. 



But of pseudo-migrants, perhaps the most extraordinary on 

 record is the irruption of Pallas's Sand Grouse into Great Britain, 

 from the plains of Tartary, in the year 1863. The first observed 

 in this country were three that were shot in the year 1859, one in 

 Wales and two in Norfolk ; but it was not until the year above- 

 mentioned that the Great Tartar invasion, aptly so called by Pro- 

 fessor Newton in his most interesting paper on the subject (' Ibis,' 

 1864, p. 185), took place throughout Europe, — "effecting a jour- 

 ney of some 4000 geographical miles, none of them guided to a 

 fixed goal by the traditional instinct of migration accumulated 

 through long generations, but all urged by some, not less forcible, 

 impulse." Many hundreds reached our own shores, stretching 

 from North Unst in Shetland to the P^nglish Channel. In the 



