I70 



IRRUPTION OF PALLAS' SAND-GROUSE. 



W. EAGLE CLARKE, F.L.S., 

 Senior Assistant in the Muse/on of Science and Art, Edinburgh. 



Onxe more — after an interval of a quarter of a century — Europe 

 and the British Isles are the scene of an irruption of Pallas' Sand- 

 Grouse {Syrrhaptes paj-adoxus Pall.), large flocks of which, leaving 

 their home in the Steppes of Central Asia, have been making their 

 way westward during the past month or two. On the 21st of April 

 they appeared in various localities in Poland; on the 27th they 

 reached Saxony; on the 5th of May they were seen in the Island of 

 Riigen, and on the 7th in Holstein. 



They reached England about ten days later. On the 17th of May 

 a specimen was brought in the flesh to me at the Leeds Museum, which 

 was said to have been shot in Dewsbury Road, Leeds. On the i8th, 

 Mr. Philip W. Lavvton saw five at Spurn, and the same day (as Mr. 

 Lawton informs me) a man at Patrington saw a party of about a score. 

 Since then Mr. Lawton has had numerous examples brought to him for 

 preserving. On the 19th Mr. Donkin saw a party of twenty in a field 

 adjoining the Ardsley reservoir, near Leeds. On the 20th large flocks 

 — as reported in the newspapers — were seen in Oxfordshire, and at 

 Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire ; and others — the date of which I have 

 not seen noted — were reported from Clifton, Nottinghamshire. On the 

 24th Mr. Thos. Bunker wrote me that one had been captured alive near 

 Goole, and on the same date Mr. Frederick Boyes, of Beverley, wrote 

 me that about fifty or sixty had been seen at Flamborough, and that 

 Mr. Harper, of Scarborough, had called to tell him that he had seen 

 about thirty at Spurn. In a note in The Field of May 26th, Mr. Boyes 

 remarked that these birds appeared on the East Coast of Yorkshire 

 on the anniversary of the day on which they were first observed a 

 quarter of a century ago, and that a flock seen on the 20th, at an East 

 Yorkshire locality, the name of which he does not give, contained at 

 least a dozen birds. In the same note he states further, that a friend 

 saw about thirty at Spurn, on the 25th of the month. On the 24th 

 one was telegraphed on the Boroughbridge Road near Norton-le-Clay, 

 and eight others are said to have been seen in the neighbourhood. 



As it is desirable that an ample record should be kept of this 

 most noteworthy and interesting ornithological event, I hope all 

 readers who have it in their power will communicate to this journal 

 full details and particulars of such occurrences in Northumberland, 

 Durham, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire (including the 

 details of the Clifton instance), Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, 

 Westmorland, Cumberland, and the Isle of Man, as may come within 

 their observation. NimlTaHlt, 



