140 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



at once ; and during the August shooting, they circled 

 inquisitively close round dog" and man. After the vole- 

 plague ceased, the invading owls vanished as mysteri- 

 ously as they had come. 1 



A curious result followed the vole-plague. In districts 

 where the most severe damage appeared to have been 

 suffered (the grass being destroyed at the roots, cut 

 through, and lying all loose on the earth), the new 

 herbage, we were told a couple of years later, had 

 come away green and sweet, and of far better quality 

 than the destroyed bents. 



Pallas' Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus). 



Most remarkable of all erratic wanderers is this 

 Central-Asian species, which, on three occasions during 

 the last half-century, has invaded Europe. The main 

 facts need no recapitulation. Suffice it to say that, 

 after a minor irruption in 1859, there occurred in 1863 

 a regular inrush. Deserting their distant homes on 

 the steppes of Tartary, Turkestan, and Tibet, these 

 sandgrouse, seized by an inexplicable impulse, sped with 

 the sun as far as land stretches to the westward ; and, 

 crossing Caspian and Caucasus, they spread themselves 

 over Europe from Italy to Archangel, and across Ireland 

 to Donegal. 



A quarter of a century later — namely, in April 1888 — 

 a third advance to the outposts of scientific observation 

 was reported from Austrian sources. We were there- 

 fore prepared to hear of their advent at home ; yet 



1 A similar, but far more extensive invasion of these same short-eared 

 owls has occurred in Argentina — the owls, in that case, having come all the 

 way from, say, Canada. 



