^"^'ion'^'l Hai.l, The Eastern Palo'arctica and Australia. 89 



a dense black and compact mass, and at the next so widely 

 separated as to be mere specks. They would at one time fly in 

 the V-shape and vary the mass form of their company in a very 

 pretty way. I have never seen any bird in tin- southern hemi- 

 sphere behave like this, tlie nearest beinj,' the Starlini:^ (Slurnits), 

 on land. 



Two days later a storm from the nortli bore down upon 

 Vladivostok. In front of it came thousands of sea-birds and 

 Waders, as tliis was nuv of tlie st't-backs they must meet in tlieir 

 migration. 



Among the hills were Crows and Kingfisliers, representatives 

 of families cfjnunon to this and our region. True Pheasants and 

 Woodpeckers were new to me, while I missed the many Pigeons 

 and Bower-Birds. The Banded Stilt and Crested Grebe breed in 

 both regions, as do several Terns — Sterna anglica, S. caspia, S. 

 sinensis, Hydrochelidon hyhrida* H. leucoptera visits northern 

 Austraha in winter. 



Manchuria is the stronghold of Cranes, the Tancho {Griis 

 leiicaiichen), the national Crane of the Japanese, being figured 

 on their screens. The throat is white, in comparison with the 

 red one of the Australian species. An " accidi'utal " of our species 

 has been recorded in Siberia. 



The Plain-Turkey of Manchuria {Otis dyhonskie) is so like the 

 European form as not even to constitute an eastern variety of 

 0. tarda. It is not so fine a bird as the Australian Bustard {0. 

 {Choriotis) australis). Strangely enough, there is no species of 

 Bustard between N.W. Australia and India. 



Instead of seeing the Button-Quails of Australia (Hemipodes) in 

 the desert country of Manchuria (Gobi), the prevalent form was 

 the Sand-Grouse. About Lake Baikal I saw the Pallas Sand- 

 Grouse {Syrrhaptes paradoxus) on a portion of steppe country. 

 This is the bird that erupted into England in vast numbers — a 

 flight westward of, say, 5,000 miles. The Sand-Grouse reminded 

 me of the Flock-Pigeon of Queensland (Histriophaps), as if the 

 latter held the place in Australia of the absent Pteroclidce, a family 

 that is structurally related to the Pigeons. The feather tracts 

 of the Grouse are similar to those of the Pigeon, and the young 

 of both are naked. Capercailzie [Tetrao bonasi) is common 

 about Seul. I secured, some weeks later, male and female of the 

 Siberian Rock Ptarmigan {Lagopus mutiis, sub-sp. ?), near the 

 mouth of the Lena, also several young. This is probably the 

 same species listed for Manchuria. It is interesting to be walking 

 across country bearing their favourite berry food — bilberries, 

 crowberries, and tender shoots of ericas. In Yarkutsk they sell 

 at = i^d. each. This bird moults three times a year, excluding 

 wing and tail quills. 



The Corvidce takes in the Blue Magpie and Nutcracker, and the 

 mud-nest-building Corcorax and Struthidea of Australia. In 



*Biiturlin, F.niii, vol. xi., October, p. 96. 



