SAND-GROUSE. 33 



interest than the irruption of PaUas's Sand-grouse, which 

 commenced, so far as regards the British IsLands, in 

 1859, and attained its maximum in 1863. The history of 

 the visitation has heen admirably narrated by Professor 

 Newton (Ibis, 1864, j)p. 185-222) : details as regards the 

 eastern counties being subsequently furnished by Mr. H. 

 Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk, i. pp. 376-404) ; and from 

 their able treatises the present abbreviated account is mainly 

 derived. 



The earliest date on record of the appearance of the Sand- 

 grouse in Britain was about the beginning of July, 1859, 

 at Walpole St. Peter's, about two miles from the Wash, 

 Norfolk ; the example, a fine male, being secured for the 

 Lynn Museum ; and a notice of its capture communicated 

 to the ' Zoologist,' p. 6764, and to the * Ibis ' (1859, p. 

 472), by the Ptev. F. L. Currie. On 9th July, another 

 male was shot from a flock of three, near Tremadoc, at the 

 north end of Cardigan Bay, and presented by Mr. Chaffers 

 to the Derby Museum, at Liverpool. A notice of this had 

 already appeared in the ' Zoologist ' (p. 6728), from Mr, 

 T. J. Moore, who subsequently gave a full account of it in 

 the ' Ibis ' (1860, pp. 105-110), illustrated by one of Mr. 

 Joseph Wolf's admirable plates. In November, 1859, Mr. 

 George Jell, of Lydd, in Kent, preserved a specimen for 

 Mr. Simmons, of East Peckham, near Tunbridge, and these 

 three are all which are known to have been obtained in 

 Great Britain prior to 1863 ; all statements as to arrivals 

 during the intervening years having apparently originated in 

 error. 



On the continent, in the same year, a pair appear to have 

 been obtained at Wilna, in Western Russia, in May ; a third 

 example was at Hobro, in Jutland ; and a fourth, one of a 

 pair which had haunted the sandhills near Zandvoort, in 

 Holland, since July, was shot there in October. In 1860, 

 one was obtained at Sarepta, on the Lower Volga. 



In 1863 came the great invasion, extending westwards to 

 Naran, on the coast of Donegal. To understand it, allusion 

 must first be made to a portion of its course on the conti- 



VOL. III. F 



