38 PTEROCLID^E. 



British Islands ; and, when writing in 1864, Professor 

 Newton considered that the total could he set down as under 

 700 ; an estimate which is probably a very moderate one, 

 especially when the number of birds taken and eaten in 

 France is considered. 



In 1872 a small flock of Sand-grouse were reported to 

 have frequented the coast of Northumberland, opposite the 

 Fern Islands, from the end of May to 6th June ; but a bird 

 which was at first stated to have been shot, proved, on 

 enquiry, to have got away.* On 25th and 29th June four 

 birds of this species were described as having been seen 

 near Girvan, Ayrshire ; f but there is no confirmatory record 

 of similar occurrences in other parts of the British Islands 

 or on the Continent. 



On 4th May, 1876, a solitary example, obtained near 

 Modena, in Italy, might have been expected to prove the 

 precursor of another invasion ; but no further arrivals either 

 on the Continent or in Britain appear to have been recorded 

 until, on the 4th of October of that same year, a male and 

 female were shot near Kilcock, co. Kildare, Ireland ; a notice 

 both of the occurrence and of the places where the specimens 

 might be inspected, being published in ' The Field ' of 14th 

 October, by Mr. W. N. Coates. With these stragglers the 

 list of visitants closes for the present. 



Essentially a native of the Asiatic steppes, this species 

 was first made known to Pallas as an inhabitant of those 

 Kirghiz plains whose western boundary is the Caspian Sea. 

 A straggler across the political frontier between Asia and 

 Europe, reached Sarepta on the Lower Volga in the winter 

 of 1848, and, coming under the notice of the Moravian 

 settlement there, Herr Mb'schler enrolled this species in his 

 list in 1853 as a very rare European bird. It is probable 

 that our visitors came from this western extremity of their 

 range. Henke (Ibis 1882, p. 220) says that Sand-grouse 

 are occasionally found near Astrakhan in winter; and in 

 1876 great numbers bred on the Kirghiz steppes, where the 



* J. Hancock, N. H. Tr. Northum. and Durham, vi. p. 87. 

 t E. Gray, Ibis, 1872, p. 335. 



