PALLAS'S SAND-GROUSE. 401 



place, namely, Oswestry. The bulk of the invaders 

 seem to have been checked in their onward course by 

 the North Sea, and to have passed the summer on the 

 flat and sandy coast extending from Holland to Jutland, 

 both of which countries witnessed, as I have related, 

 attempts on the part of the colonizers to increase and 

 multiply. In Holland we have flocks of a couple of 

 hundred spoken of as frequenting the sand-hills in 

 June. (J. f. O., 1864, p. 69). At the beginning of July, 

 Professor Reinhardt informs me there were large flocks 

 in Jutland and Slesvig. About the middle of August 

 Dr. Altum tells us that bands of from ninety to a 

 hundred were still seen on the Frisian island of 

 Borkum. A month later, in September, a great flock 

 was observed at Pinneberg, in Holstein, and some time 

 in autumn a large flight on Norderney ; while the 

 latest notice I can find of a numerous company being 

 seen together is on the 3rd of October, when a flock of 

 from one hundred and fifty to two hundred were seen at 

 Wittow, in Eiigen, flying high in air from north- 

 west to south-east, and making probably for the land 

 of their birth." This last date, it will be observed, 

 corresponds exactly with the latest record of the appear- 

 ance of these birds in Norfolk. With regard to the 

 numbers which actually visited the European continent, 

 and those which are known to have met with an untimely 

 end, Mr. Newton is inclined to estimate the former, 

 from all sources of information, at not less than seven 

 hundred, the latter at about three hundred and forty- 

 five, adding "another hundred and fifty-five for birds 

 wliich, falling into the hands of ignorant persons, have 

 been altogether lost sight of." No wonder that so 

 extensive, and in every respect remarkable, an immigra- 

 tion of a strictly Asiatic species into western Europe, 

 shoTild have led to a strange diversity of opinion 

 amongst naturalists as to the actual cause; some 

 8p 



