1794 The Zoologist — August, J 869. 



hawks, of different species, accompanied by a crowd of vultures, came 

 to supplant them and enjoy their share of the spoil. It was then that 

 the authors of all this devastation began their entry among the dead, 

 the dying and the mangled. The pigeons were picked up and piled 

 in heaps, until each had as many as he could possibly dispose of, 

 when the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder."— J^j7son's 

 American Ornotholngy, vol. iv., p. 319 o{ Jameso?i's Edifion. 



The Waxwing.— In the ' Zoologist' for 1850 the details are given 

 of five hundred and eighty-six of these birds killed in Great Britain 

 in the winter of 1849-50, nearly all of them on our eastern coast: the 

 direction of flight being westward is usual in their movements; but 

 the time of year corresponds with neither the vernal nor autumnal 

 migration : during tiie same winter Belgium, Holland and France were 

 visited by immense flocks of the same species. 



Pallas' Sand Grouse. — Tiiis bird is a native of Asia, more par- 

 ticularly of the Chinese Empire: as a British or even European bird 

 it was unknown ten years ago. Tlie following particulars are from 

 the recently published edition of Montagu's ' Ornithological Dictionary.' 

 The first record of the species visiting Britain was on the 9th of July, 

 1859, when a single specimen was killed at Tremadoc, in North Wales, 

 and a second at Walpole St. Peter's, in Norfolk ; and on the 23rd of 

 the same month a third occurred at Hobro, in Jutland. An interval 

 of three years elapsed before the bird was again observed, and then it 

 made an invasion of Britain in force. Great pains have been taken in 

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

 every instance in which the bird was obtained or seen : their arrival 

 on British soil seems to have commenced about the third week in 

 May, and to have continued uninterrupted until the third week in 

 June, when it ceased entirely: during this period about three hun- 

 dred speciu)ens were destroyed, and probably ten times that number 

 observed. The birds seem to have arrived almost simultaneously at 

 very distant and very opposite parts of the kingdom : we find them at 

 Walney Island, off the west coast of Lancashire, on the 22nd of May, 

 in Norfolk on the 23rd, at Aldershot, on the 26lh, in Essex on the 

 27lh, in Suffolk on the 28th, and again in Essex on the 29th : their 

 flight was ever westward, but apparently without haste ; they con- 

 stantly alighted and ate the seeds of a number of our commonest 

 plants. I have made out a list of thirty-one species which grew freely 

 from the contents of the crops of specimens that were killed : all of 

 these seeds are small, and the number requisite to fill the stomach of 



