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 (Ibis, 1871, p. 223). In 

 1860 another was obtained at Sarepta; but in May and June 1863 

 a horde, computed to consist of at least 700 birds, overran Europe 

 reaching Sweden, Norway, the Fseroes and Ireland in the north- 

 west, and in the south extending to Bimini 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. 1 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 ; 2 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 Ibis, 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. Hose. 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. 



