igO THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



PEDIOPHILI. 

 PTEROCLID^. 



PALLAS'S SAND-GROUSE. 



Syrrhaptes paradoxus. 



This straggler from the Steppes of Asia made its first appear- 

 ance in Britain^ on the coast of Norfolk, in July 1859 ; the 

 great invasion, however, did not take place till 1863, and the 

 Sand-Grouse did not arrive in Sussex tiU that year, though 

 one was killed so near as New Komney in Kent in November 

 1859 (Ibis, 1864, p. 186). The flight is extremely swift, and 

 the note is described as resembling the words " truck-truck, 

 truck- truck " ; the food consists of small seeds and berries. 

 Mr. Parkin, of Halton, Hastings, in his P. N., says that a 

 specimen was caught va. the parish of Icklesham, at the 

 Camber Sandbanks, in July 1863, by a son of Lieut. Webb, 

 of the Coastguard, and was stuffed by Mr. Gasson, of Eye. 

 I was informed by Mr. Pratt, of Brighton, that a flock of 

 about thirty were seen for some days in June 1888, flying to 

 and fro from the Downs to the beach ; they were very wUd, 

 and no one could get within shot of them. He also said that 

 on June 30th two were shot near Palmer, and a solitary bird 

 on the beach at Shoreham on the 8th of November ; all these 

 examples were sent to him for preservation. Mr. JeflPery 

 tells me that a Sand-Grouse was obtained at Itchenor, near 

 Chichester, in February 1889. In the 'Zoologist' (p. 8683) 

 we read of a specimen having been shot by Mr. Pickard, of 

 Woodward Farm, Balcombe, in June 1863, from the crop of 

 which a spoonful of small seeds was taken ; and of another, 

 supposed to be a female, shot out of a flock of seven or eight 



