IRRUPTIONS OF SAND GROUSE 



been compared rather with that of the plover. The 

 anatomy of the bird, according to Professor Huxley, is 

 almost exactly intermediate between that of pigeons 

 and that of the gallinaceous birds, such as grouse. The 

 name sand grouse might therefore, according to that 

 anatomist, profitably be altered to " pigeon grouse," a 

 name which would stamp upon the memory the charac- 

 teristics of the bird. This view, however, like most 

 other views in ornithology, has undergone some altera- 

 tion ; and Dr. Mitchell, the Secretary of the Zoological 

 Society, rather considers the sand grouse to be nearer 

 to the doves, and both of them to be allied to the plovers. 

 Be this as it may, the main fact about the bird of uni- 

 versal interest is the migratory instinct already referred 

 to. The knowledge of this only dates from the year 

 1848, when a single example was met with in Russia. 

 " In 1888," remarks Professor Alfred Newton in his 

 Dictionary of Birds, " occurred an irruption in quite 

 incalculable numbers." Even Parliament was moved 

 to pass an Act for the protection of these immigrating 

 strangers ; but, characteristically, the Act did not come 

 into force until 1889, when the colonisers had already 

 dwindled. In this country the birds breed, though not 

 freely ; and it was found, as had been noted previously, 

 that the young were hatched from the egg in down 

 plumage, and were not little naked " pipers " like the 

 young of the pigeon tribe. These chicks arise from eggs 

 which are laid in shallow holes in the ground, and are 

 coloured. In this the sand grouse evidently shows 

 characters like those of the plover tribe rather than the 

 pigeons, which lay white eggs in nests made upon trees. 



THE PEACOCK 



The peacock, the Miles gloriosus, or swaggering soldier 

 of the ornithological world, belongs to the pheasant 

 tribe, and, like them, shows a great difference in the 



207 



