The Zoologist — September, 1866. 379 



more especially of the Chinese Empire. Mr. Swiiihoe informs us it is 

 very abundant, during winter, on the plains between Pekin and Tien- 

 tsin, flocks of hundreds constantly passing over with a swift flight, not 

 unlike that of the Golden Plover, for which bird they were at first 

 mistaken. " The market at Tientsin," says Mr. Swinhoe, " was com- 

 pletely glutted with them, and you coidd purchase them for a mere 

 nothing. The natives call them Sha-chee, or Sand-fowl, and told me 

 they were mostly caught with clap-nets. After a fall of snow the cap- 

 ture was the greatest, for where the net was laid the ground was cleared 

 and strewed with small green beans. The cleared patch was almost 

 sure to catch the eye of the passing flocks, who would descend and 

 crowd into the snare. It only remained then for the fowler, hidden at 

 a distance, to jerk the strings, and in his hawl he would not unfre- 

 quently take the whole flock." Mr. Swinhoe was told that these birds 

 are found abundantly in the great plains of Tartary beyond the Great 

 Wall, where they breed in the sand. The same accomplished orni- 

 thologist says they possess rather a melodious chuckle, the only note 

 he has heard them utter. The advent in Britain of this species is the 

 most remarkable ornitliological fact tlial has occurred for very many 

 years. The bird was previously unknown to the European Avifauna; 

 for although the name was twice introduced into our list, it was also 

 twice struck out, under the conviction that the bird intended was a 

 species of Pterocles long known to ornithologists as an inhabitant of 

 the South of Europe. The first record of this bird's occurrence in 

 Britain will be found in the 'Zoologist' for 1859, at p. 6728, where 

 Mr. Moore, of Liverpool, records that a single specimen was killed 

 near Tremadoc, in Wales, on the 9th of July of that year; two others 

 were seen, but escaped. About the same day a specimen was killed 

 on the opposite side of the Island, at Walpole St. Peter's, in Norfolk; 

 this was an adult male, in perfect plumage (see Zool. 6764). On the 

 23rd of the same month one of these birds was killed on the Continent, 

 at Hobro, in Jutland, and another seen a few miles from the same 

 locality, as recorded by Mr. Newton (Zool. 6780). An interval of three 

 years passed over before the bird was again observed, and then it made 

 an invasion in force. Great pains have been taken by naturalists in 

 every part of the kingdom to transfer to the 'Zoologist' a record of 

 every instance in which the bird was obtained or seen ; but many of 

 these records remain incomplete, owing to the carelessness and in- 

 difierence of writers, who are not themselves naturalists, in wording 

 their communications, and in failing to give that precise information 



