PALLAS'S SAND-GROUSE 



his contemporaries appear to have been acquainted with 

 it. Pallas's sand-grouse has invaded Britain and other 

 parts of Europe in recent times in the years 1863, 1872, 

 1873, 1888, and 1889. To this record we have to add the 

 year of 1899. I^ is difficult to say what impels these 

 birds in their far migration from the deserts of Central 

 Asia. Probably scarcity of food has a good deal to do 

 with the matter. From the latest appearance of one 

 of these sand-grouse in Lincolnshire, noticed first at 

 the end of January in that year, it is more than possible 

 that a great fall of snow was accountable for their arrival 

 in Europe. Swinhoe, in writing of these birds, men- 

 tions that in their own country they are driven south 

 by snowfalls, and that the natives, by clearing snow 

 from small tracts of ground, are at times enabled to 

 net a whole flock. As sand-grouse usually move in 

 large bodies, such a haul would obviously be a very 

 welcome one to the half-starved denizens of the wintry 

 steppes. 



The principal migration of Pallas's sand-grouse to 

 Great Britain in recent years happened, as many 

 readers will remember, in 1888. In that season many 

 examples were seen and shot in different parts of the 

 country. The largest number observed in one flock 

 seems to have been about sixty. In several localities 

 there can be little doubt that pairs of these birds bred, 

 but, from various causes, the species was not acclima- 

 tised, and, after a year or two, the immigrants had 

 vanished — many were shot, some died, the rest prob- 

 ably betook themselves eastward again. During this 

 strange migration many hundreds were observed pass- 

 ing westward beyond the coast of Ireland, and there 

 can be little doubt that, as with other migratory species, 

 some thousands found their last resting-place in the 

 Atlantic Ocean. When these birds first appeared in 



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