50 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



therefore, at last tried a chance shot at it from their 

 vehicle, when the bird, though badly hit, flew too far for 

 them to mark it down, and was never seen again. It 

 was generally observed in company with a few peewits, 

 frequenting the same spot, and after carefully watching 

 it once or twice, within easy range, and afterwards 

 consulting the figures in Yarrell and other authors, no 

 doubt whatever existed in their minds as to the identity 

 of the species. 



So little is really known as to the true habitat of this 

 rare migrant that I do not hesitate to supplement my 

 present notice of it with an extract from a paper on 

 " Recent discoveries in European Oology," published by 

 Mr. Hewitson in the "Ibis" for 1859 (vol. i., p. 79) :* 

 " For the discovery of its eggs," writes Mr. Hewitson, 

 " ornithologists are indebted to the Rev. H. B. Tristram, 

 who has kindly sent me the following notes : ' Although 

 during the winter of 1856-57 I penetrated several 

 hundred miles into the Algerian Sahara, and beyond 

 its limits as far as between latitude 31 and 30, yet 

 this bird only once came under my observation, being 

 evidently for the most part only a summer migrant to 

 those regions. In the month of June, 1857, I twice met 

 with small flocks of them on the hauts plateaux between 

 Biskra and Batna, to the south of Constantine. During 

 the previous summer of 1856, I had met with the bird 

 several times in the western Sahara, north of Laghouat, 

 and especially in the neighbourhood of Ain Oosera, a 

 solitary caravansary in the desert kept up by the French 

 government as a military halting-place. Though certain 

 that the birds were breeding there at the time, I was 

 unable to detect their nests; but shortly after my 



* See also Mr. Osbert Salvin's remarks on this species, as 

 observed by him in the Eastern Atlas, near Constantine, " Ibis," 

 1859, p. 354. 



