Notes on Sand Grouse. By George Bolam. 543 



Professor Newton having 1 undertaken to write a similar history 

 of the present invasion, we may with confidence look forward to 

 his paper for all that has been discovered during our recent 

 experience regarding the habits and peregrinations of this most 

 interesting bird. 



The visitation of 1888 in point of numbers seems to have 

 exceeded anything which had gone before. Mr William Evans 

 (Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, vol- x., 

 p. 122) has estimated that not less than from 1500 to 2000 of the 

 birds reached Scotland, and probably these figures will be found 

 to be rather too low than too high. Becoming first known in 

 the British Islands from a few appearances in Norfolk, Cardigan, 

 and Kent, in July and November 1859, Sand Grouse were 

 again observed in 1872, when small flocks were seen in 

 Northumberland and Ayrshire ; and in 1876 a pack was noticed 

 in Norfolk in May, and two birds were shot in county Kildare, 

 Ireland, in October* ; but with these exceptions no Sand Grouse 

 had been seen upon our shores since 1863. In that year, the 

 first to be noticed in Great Britain were three birds which were 

 killed at Thropton near Rothbury, on 21st May, and curiously 

 enough amongst the pioneers of the present invasion, one, a 

 male, was picked up on 23rd May 1888, below the telegraph 

 wires at Cragside (the seat of Lord Armstrong) in Northumber- 

 land, and within a few miles of where they had occurred just a 

 quarter of a century before. On 8th May 1888, the first Sand 

 Grouse were noticed on Heligoland (Herr Gatke in the Zoologist 

 for July) flocks of from 10 to 200 individuals following each 

 other in rapid succession, almost every day afterwards ; and on 

 the 12th of that month a party of thirty had reached the Naze 

 in the south of Norway (Professor Collett, in the Ibis for 1888, 

 p. 375). According to a paper published by the Rev. H. A. 

 Macpherson, from information chiefly collected by Professor 

 Newton, and Mr J. A. Harvie Brown, the earliest authentic 

 arrival in Scotland, was on 14th May, when some birds were 

 seen at Fyvie in Aberdeenshire, and a few days later they were 

 reported from all along the coast. The male, already mentioned 

 as having been picked up at Cragside, was presented by Lord 

 Armstrong to the Newcastle Museum, and is now preserved 

 there, but the birds seem to have reached Northumberland some 



* See Saunders' "Manual of British Birds;" also 4th edition of 

 Yarrell, etc. 



