GREY PHALAROPE. 437 
south-eastern and southern counties.* At that time, 
according to Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., who published} a 
very interesting paper on this extraordinary immigra- 
tion, the dates of their appearance ranged from the 
20th of August to the 8th or October, but the bulk of 
the specimens were procured between the 15th and 25th 
of September, and the largest number, in one day, on the 
18th of that month. From Mr. Gurney’s painstaking 
researches it appears that upwards of five hundred of 
these beautiful little creatures were sacrificed to the rage 
for collecting specimens, of which number two hundred 
and fifty were killed in Sussex alone, the habitual 
tameness of this species and its unsuspecting nature, 
everywhere exposing it to danger. It is difficult to 
account in any satisfactory manner for so remarkable 
an influx of a species, which, though a constant, has 
been rarely known as a numerous, visitant to our 
shores, but even if their abundance was in this in- 
stance the result of an unusually favourable breeding 
season, Mr. Gurney is probably right in presuming 
that their appearance on our eastern and southern 
coasts was owing to “the severe and premature gales” 
which prevailed in September of that year. As far as 
I could ascertain at that time, only four specimens were 
procured in Norfolk; the first on the 22nd of September, 
which was seen swimming in a small pond on Swarde- 
stone Common, and was killed by an old woman with 
* Mr. Gould (“ Birds of Great Britain,’’) speaks of a considerable 
flight which appeared some years since on the coasts of Devon 
and Cornwall when large numbers were killed during the month 
of October, and he further states that the first time this species 
was observed in abundance at Plymouth, was about five and thirty 
years ago. 
+ “A Summary of the occurrences of the Grey Phalarope in 
Great Britain during the Autumn of 1866,” by J. H. Gurney, jun. 
