50 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
therefore, at last tried a chance shot at it from their 
vehicle, when the bird, though badly hit, flew too far for 
them to mark it down, and was never seen again. It 
was generally observed in company with a few peewits, 
frequenting the same spot, and after carefully watching 
it once or twice, within easy range, and afterwards 
consulting the figures in Yarrell and other authors, no 
doubt whatever existed in their minds as to the identity 
of the species. 
So little is really known as to the true habitat of this 
rare migrant that I do not hesitate to supplement my 
present notice of it with an extract from a paper on 
“Recent discoveries in European Oology,” published by 
Mr. Hewitson in the “Ibis” for 1859 (vol. i., p. 79) *— 
“For the discovery of its eggs,” writes Mr. Hewitson, 
“ornithologists are indebted to the Rev. H. B. Tristram, 
who has kindly sent me the following notes: ‘ Although 
during the winter of 1856-57 I penetrated several 
hundred miles into the Algerian Sahara, and beyond 
its limits as far as between latitude 31° and 809, yet 
this bird only once came under my observation, being 
evidently for the most part only a summer migrant to 
those regions. In the month of June, 1857, I twice met 
with small flocks of them on the hauts plateaux between 
Biskra and Batna, to the south of Constantine. During 
the previous summer of 1856, I had met with the bird 
several times in the western Sahara, north of Laghouat, 
and especially in the neighbourhood of Ain Oosera, a 
solitary caravansary in the desert kept up by the French 
government as a military halting-place. Though certain 
that the birds were breeding there at the time, I was 
unable to detect their nests; but shortly after my 
* See also Mr. Osbert Salvin’s remarks on this species, as 
observed by him in the Eastern Atlas, near Constantine, “ Ibis,” 
1859, p. 354. 
