XIY. 
NOTES ON BIRDS OBSERVED IN HERTFORDSHIRE DURING 
THE YEAR 1888. 
By John Hopkinson, F.L.S., F.6.S., etc. 
Bead at Watford , 22 nd March , 1889. 
Poe ten years in succession the Society has had most interesting 
reports on the birds observed in the county, by an accurate and 
keen-sighted observer, an accomplished ornithologist, a pleasant 
writer, an eloquent speaker—the late Mr. John E. Littleboy. Ey 
his death in August last we have lost one of our most valued 
members, one whom it was always a pleasure to have with us at 
our field meetings, and whose “Notes on birds,” read at our even¬ 
ing meetings, invariably attracted a large audience. 
Perhaps the most valuable of Mr. Littleboy’s reports was his last 
(that for 1887), in which, from information supplied to him by the 
Honourable Walter Eothschild, of Tring Park, he was enabled to 
add 21 species to the county list, all but one being birds which 
frequent or have visited the Tring Eeservoirs, and that one being 
recorded from specimens preserved in the Tring Park collection. 
In the previous report only two species were added to our list of 
Hertfordshire birds, and it cannot be expected that the number 
(201) recorded by Mr. Littleboy up to the end of the year 1887 as 
frequenting or as having at any time been seen in the county will 
be much increased. 
I have now, in the present interim report which I have drawn 
up pending the appointment of a successor to Mr. Littleboy’s office 
of ornithological recorder to the Society, only one species to add to 
his list—one, however, of great interest. 
Pallas’ Sand-geouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus ).—On the 21st of 
May, our ex-President, Mr. E. M. Campbell, F.L.S., wrote from 
his residence, Hose Hill, Hoddesdon, to Mr. Littleboy, as follows:— 
“ Yesterday, 20th May, at 6 p.m., were shot at Jepps Farm (about 
two miles from this place) two sand-grouse which rose off a ploughed 
field with a flight of 40. The birds are in my possession and will 
be stuffed.” To this Mr. Littleboy replied on the following day:— 
“Thank you very much for the very interesting information re¬ 
specting the sand-grouse. I had heard of two dead ones being 
picked up near Hoyston; but a flight of 40! The news is most 
welcome.” A week later Mr. Henry Lewis, of St. Albans, wrote 
to Mr. Littleboy informing him that Mr. Arthur W. Hickenson, 
of New Farm, St. Albans, saw, on 22nd May, seven sand-grouse 
“ flying over or near Patch Wood, St. Albans. They did not settle 
and their flight resembled the golden plover’s.” Some time after 
this Mr. Chapman, of Pennington, wrote to Mr. Lewis stating that 
he shot a very fine sand-grouse at Bennington on 4th June. He 
thought when he first saw it that it was a golden plover, but when 
he heard its call of “ cruck, cruck,” he knew that it was a strange 
bird to him. He has had it stuffed, and offers to show it to any 
