544 Notes on Sand Grouse. By George Bolam. 



time before this. Holy Island, as might have been anticipated 

 from its situation and its extensive sandy links, was one of the 

 first places to be visited, and early in May several of the birds 

 were noticed by the fishermen amongst the bents. They were 

 mostly in pairs and were so tame that the people supposed they 

 must be birds which had escaped from confinement, and many 

 were the attempts made to capture them ; one man assuring me 

 that he had almost succeeded in catching one pair with his hat, 

 so reluctant were they to take wing. The exact date of their 

 first appearance at Holy Island I have been unable to trace, 

 but at any rate it was sometime between the 6th and the 19th 

 May, for upon the latter date, Mr Charles Purvis of Alnwick 

 informs me that he was at the Island, and was told by the 

 fishermen about the strange " partridge-like birds with long 

 tails " which they had lately seen. 



Early on the morning of Sunday, 6th May, a vessel being 

 aground upon the Megstone, one of the Fame Island group, the 

 Holy Island men went off to her assistance, and while they were 

 there a single Sand Grouse was seen upon the Island. The date 

 of the wreck fortunately fixes this date, which, if the men are to 

 be relied upon, is the earliest record, so far as I am aware, of 

 the arrival of the birds in this country. The fishermen had, 

 later on, ample opportunities of seeing and becoming familiar 

 with the birds, and were not therefore likely to be mistaken as 

 to identification, while upon the other hand they had no sort of 

 motives for giving an earlier day for the arrival than was 

 actually the case ; there is also the fact that within a few days 

 at any-rate numbers of the birds were seen at Holy Island. 



The Sand Grouse remained at Holy Island for some weeks 

 after their first arrival, and by the end of May, had collected 

 together into a large flock, which used to feed largely upon a 

 field of springing barley, and the farmer fearing damage to his 

 crops, discharged his gun more than once into the brown of them. 

 As many as ten birds were said to have fallen in this way to one 

 shot, and pies were reported to have been made of some of them. 

 The majority were either eaten or destroyed, the wings in some 

 cases going to decorate the Sunday bonnets of the fisher-lassies, 

 but a few specimens found their way into other hands and were 

 preserved ; I have records of, or have seen, fully ten or a dozen 

 individuals so saved and set up by local people, while a good 

 many of the birds found their way from Holy Island into 



