186 Mr. A. Newton on the Irruption of 



of one of these birds, sent him by Fischer, that Temniinck (Hist. 

 Pig. et Galhnac. iii. pp. 282-287) took his account. In 1825 

 naturalists learned from M. Drapiez (Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat. 

 viii. p. 182) that M. Delanoue had met with this species on the 

 Chinese frontier of the Russian empire. He is stated to have 

 had several opportunities of studying its habits, and to describe 

 its nidification ; but he makes, as I shall presently show, one 

 assertion not borne out by later investigation. 



In 1853, in a list of the birds met with at Sarepta, on the 

 Lower Wolga, Herr Moschler (Naumannia, iii. p. 305) enume- 

 rated Syrr/iaptes paradoxus, attaching to its name a symbol 

 indicating that it was "very rare^' there. Considering what 

 Professors Eversmanu and Eichwald had ascertained concerning 

 its geographical range, the fact is not of a surprising nature ; but 

 this seems to be the earliest authentic record of its actual oc- 

 currence in Europe, though Prince C. L. Bonaparte, moved per- 

 haps by a lucky spirit of prophecy, had in 1838 (Comp. List, 

 p. 42) included it as a bird of this quarter of the globe. 



So passed on the time until 1859, when, as all my readers 

 will be aware, four examples of this bird were killed, and others 

 seen, in Western Europe *. But these were not all that were 

 obtained in that year ; for I am informed by Mr. George Jell, of 

 Lydd in Kent, that he stuffed a specimen which was killed, in 

 November 1859, at New Romney in that county, and is now in 

 the possession of Mr. Simmons, a gentleman living at East 

 Peckham, near Tonbridge. I also find that, in the month of May 



precedence of lUiger's Syrrhaptes, which stands from 1811 ; but the third 

 volume of the Moscow ' Meraoires' bears on its title-page 1812. Hetero- 

 clitus of Vieillot is long subsequent in date, though many of the French 

 ornithologists persist in using it ; it is also objectionable from its resem- 

 blance to Heteroclites, preoccupied in conchology by Lamarck. 



* Lobserve that one or two writers of late have misquoted the dates and 

 localities of these occurrences. It may be as well, therefore, to repeat here, 

 that one was killed at Walpole St. Peter's, in Norfolk, early in July 1859 ; 

 on the 9th of the same month a second, near Tremadoc, in North Wales ; 

 on the 23rd, a third, near Hobro, m Jutland ; and at the beginning of Oc- 

 tober in the same year, the fourth, being one of a pair which had haunted 

 the sand-hills near Zandvoort, in Holland, since July, was shot at that place 

 I give these particulars after consulting the original records. 



