NOTES AND QUERIES. 267 



Pallas's Sand Grouse in Heligoland. — I am indebted to Mr. H. Gatke 

 for the following notes on the occurrence of the Sand Grouse in Heligoland, 

 communicated in a letter dated May 25th : — "On 8th of May, twelve birds; 

 13tb, a score ; 14th, some; 15th, some ; 16th, flights from five to twenty, 



twenty-five shot ; 17th, L , early this morning, on Sandy Island, shot 



eighteen; 18th, flights from twenty to two hundred head; 19th, a few; 

 20th, small flocks from five to twenty; 21st, fog, none seen; 22ud, 

 hundreds, many females ; 23rd, flocks from ten to forty ; 24th, many great 

 flights, fifty to one hundred ; 25th, many flights from five to twenty, very 

 cold northerly wind blowing rather fresh." " This is principally to tell you 

 to look after the birds in sandy, gravelly places, — the flat beach at foot at the 

 sand-dunes, like our Sandy Island. On the top of our cliff, the cultivated 

 ground, they are met with in far less proportion, not ten to one hundred. 

 To see the birds when squatting on ground composed of sand, stones, and 

 some dry seaweeds is scarcely possible, and they know this well, because 

 they lay so close. What flyers they are ! They beat all we have ever seen 

 here."— John Cordeaux (Great Cotes, Ulceby). 



Pallas's Sand Grouse in Scandinavia. — The Sand Grouse seems to 

 have appeared in Denmark and Scandinavia before making its appearance 

 here. In the Island of Bornholm, in the Baltic, large flocks, numbering 

 many hundreds, were seen early in May, some being shot, others captured 

 alive. A few days later birds were seen in various parts of Denmark and 

 Sweden. In Norway a flock of birds was seen at Lister, on the extreme 

 west coasts, on May 12th, and two were shot, a male and female. Their 

 crops were full of tiny black seeds unknown to that country, whilst the eggs 

 in the hen were far developed. During the immigration in ]863 these 

 birds were seen as far north as Nordfjord. In that year, too, many nested 

 on the west coast of Jutland, where the soil is sandy, but the eggs were all 

 gathered by the fishermen. — Nature. 



Kites in Dorsetshire. — A pair of Kites frequented the neighbourhood 

 of Dorchester during the early part of the present summer, and would 

 probably have nested had it not been for the untimely death of one of 

 them, which unfortuua:ely ate some poisoned carrion laid down by a 

 vulpicide for the destruction of foxes, by which act both sportsmen and 

 naturalists have been made to suffer. The latter are the worse off, because 

 foxes usually find protection in this part of the world, the coverts in which 

 the above catastrophe occurred being an exception. — J. C. Mansel- 

 Plkydell (Whatcombe, Blandford). 



Pied Flycatcher in Ireland. — In his notice of the Pied Flycatcher in 

 Glamorganshire (p. 229), Mr. Digby S. W. Nicholl takes the opportunity 

 of correcting Mr. Seebohm's statement (' British Birds,' vol. i. p. 328) that 

 the Pied Flycatcher " has never been recorded from Ireland." I have, as 



