PALLAS'S SAND-GROUSE. 187 



C. S. Gregson), "which seemed to have hved near a 

 town for some time, being as dirt}' as a Liverpool Spar- 

 row," presumably the same specimen recorded by Mr. 

 Gregson (Proc. Hist. Soc. Lane, cOc, 1865-66) as " a 

 male, shot near Warrington December 25th, 1863." 

 Mr. R. J. Howard tells me that he has examined two 

 males, which were shot by a gamekeeper on the Scaris- 

 brick estate, in a field of spring oats, in 1863 : they 

 were the only birds killed out of a flock of about fifteen, 

 the remainder flying oft' in a northerly direction. 



[The following extracts are from a paper contributed 

 to The Zooloriist for 1889, by Mr. E. J. Howard :— 



*' In 1888, as in 1863, Lancashire was favoured with 

 a visit from this interesting species ; the second inva- 

 sion, however, was on a larger scale, with a correspond- 

 ingly heavier death-roll than that of twenty-five years 

 ago. The first arrival of the birds, at almost the same 

 date as in 1863 (as regards Lancashire, within two days 

 of the same date), is remarkable. In this report I pro- 

 pose to deal with occurrences which have come within 

 my own knowledge in the county of Lancashire, except- 

 ing the Furness district, which the Eev. H. A. Macpher- 

 son has included in his report on the subject, published 

 in thq ' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmore- 

 land Scientific Association.' 



" May 20th. — Eight were seen to alight on the moss 

 about a mile north of St. Michael's-on-Wyre. On the 

 following morning Cuthbert Baines, a farm-labourer, 

 shot four of them (two males and two females) ; the 

 rest flew N.W. These are the birds referred to by Mr. 

 Hugh P. Hornby (Field, June 2nd), who writes me that 

 he was misinformed as to the number of birds in the 

 flock, and the date when his were shot, and that his 

 notes are consequently incorrect on these points. 



