SAND-GROUSE 807 
Sarepta on the Volga in the winter of 1848. In May 1859 a pair 
is said to have been killed in the Government of Vilna on the 
western borders of the Russian Empire, and a few weeks later five 
examples were procured, and a few others seen, in Western Europe 
—one in Jutland, one in Holland, two in England and one in 
Wales, beside which a sixth was killed near Perpignan at the foot 
of the Pyrenees in the October following (Jdis, 1871, p. 223). In 
1860 another was obtained at Sarepta; but in May and June 18638 
a horde, computed to consist of at least 700 birds, overran Europe 
—reaching Sweden, Norway, the Fxroes and Ireland in the north- 
west, and in the south extending to Rimini on the Adriatic and 
Biscarolle on the Bay of Biscay. On the sandhills of Jutland and 
Holland some of these birds bred, but war was too successfully 
waged against the nomads to allow of their establishing themselves, 
and a few survivors only were left to fall to the gun in the course 
of the following winter and spring.t. In 1872 and 1876 there were 
two small visitations ; but from the former, observed in only two 
localities—one on the coast of Northumberland, the other on that 
of Ayrshire, both in the month of June—no specimen is known to 
have been obtained, while the latter was observed in three localities 
—one near Winterton in Norfolk in May, another near Modena in 
Italy in June, and the third in the county Wicklow in Ireland, 
where at least one was killed. In 1888 occurred an irruption in 
numbers quite incalculable. ‘The excess of observations over those 
of 1863 is no doubt due in some measure to the increased attention 
paid to it, mainly in consequence of a warning issued (29th April) 
by Prof. R. Blasius of Brunswick so soon as the movement was 
known to him, but still there is proof of the invasion being on a 
much larger scale. Most of the features of 1863 were repeated, 
and the general line taken was much as in that year, suggesting the 
same “radiant point” (to use an astronomical phrase) in both 
cases ;? but, owing to the meagre reports that have reached us from 
the East, that point is still to seek, and its determination must 
await another opportunity. Some differences, however, are to be 
noted: the event took place nearly a month earlier in the year, 
and the passage across Europe soon expanded more widely. In the 
north-east the Gulf of Finland was crossed to Helsingfors, but the 
most northerly (Roraas in Norway) and westerly (Belmullet in Ire- 
land) points reached were only a little further than the limits of 
1863. Southward a great extension was shewn not only in Italy 
1 Tbis, 1864, pp. 185-222. A few additional particulars which have since 
become known to me are here inserted. 
2 But the species seems to have established itself in 1876 on the left bank of 
the Lower Volga (K. G. Henke, Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 1877, i. p. 119), and the 
incursionists of 1888 may have had their origin there. South-west of the 
Caspian the species is a rare visitant. P 
