NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 3j9 



To some extent, it may be said, we were not altogether 

 unprepared for this incursion, seeing that it is not the first time 

 that the bird bas visited us in some numbers, and it was, of 

 course, within the bounds of possibility that it would come 

 again from a repetition of the same operating cause. What 

 this cause is no one has yet satisfactorily determined. In the 

 opinion of Prof. Newton* it may be regarded as "the natural 

 overflow of the population of Syrrhaptes, resulting from its 

 ordinary increase. It may have been striving to extend its 

 range in all directions, and if so (he considers) it would 

 assuredly have found the direction of least resistance." But to 

 account for such a sudden and complete dispersal some further 

 explanation seems necessary ; and it appears to us not unlikely, 

 as we have elsewhere suggested, f that a sand-storm of unusual 

 severity, such as is known to occur in desert-lands, may have 

 suddenly expelled the entire bird-population of the district over 

 which it swept, driving them in their fright so far beyond the 

 limits of a natural migratory movement at the approach of the 

 breeding-season that, having once got beyond the desert plains 

 and over inclosed and cultivated country, they would keep on 

 and on in the expectation of finding ground attractive to them, 

 until the necessity for food and rest would compel them to 

 descend and alight. In this way only does it seem possible to 

 explain their journeying so far westward as the British Islands, 

 since we may reasonably assume that the birds might have met 

 with tracts of country much nearer to their true home which 

 would have suited them so well as to render any journey further 

 westward unnecessary. 



In the pamphlet before us Mr. Tegetmeier does not attempt 

 any explanation of the cause of this invasion, but confines 

 himself, as he tells us in his preface, to a description of the 

 habits of the bird as furnished by ornithologists who have 

 observed it in its native country ; a popular account of the 

 singular peculiarities of its structure ; a short history of its 

 remarkable migrations; and a plea for its preservation as an 

 object not only of interest, but of utility. 



* 'The Ibis,' 1864, p. 219. 



\ "The recent immigration of Pallas's Sand Grouse," in 'Life Lore' for 



August, 188H. 



