70 (p) Ophiuchi (42 of our list). Krüger, the great investigator of this star, from further observation prefers a parallax of 0162, subject to an uncertainty of 0"0071, inferring a mass in the system 3.1 times greater than that of our sun, and a distance which light would traverse in 20·1 years.

OPTICAL DECEPTION.

The evening of July 27, 1863, had been cloudless, but hazy, with flaring and fluttering definition. As night advanced, however, it improved, and towards 11h. the discs of the stars came out finely: about this time, in endeavouring to meet with the beautiful triple star e Equulei (which has no place in our list, from the difficulty of finding it from description), I came across a 6 mag. star with a close 8 or 8 mag. companion, at about 15 and 330°, both discs being very nicely defined. Thinking that this might be an object of W. Struve's, which I believed to exist in that quarter, but had never seen, I looked carefully at it, and continued my search, turning to a similar star in the field of the finder, some 2° distant. To my great surprise this had the same appearance. I tried a third; they were all alike. I at once turned the eye-piece (an achromatic combination by Powell and Leland, giving a power of about 300) round its axis; but the images remained unchanged. I then turned the object-glass one-third round; the companion was still there-I fancied at first somewhat altered in angle, but further examination proved that I was mistaken; and a turn of another third made no difference. A star not far from Al Tair gave the same result, perhaps less distinct. I looked to the west towards Hercules; still something of the same kind came before me, though not so clearly. I returned to my first three stars; in each case the attendant was still perceptible, though much less obvious, and apparently fading away: while occupied among them, I came unexpectedly across my intended object, e Equulei; and here the beautiful and black division of the close pair at once satisfied me that neither the eye nor the instrument could be the cause of this singular deception. I regretted that its short continuance, and my own haste, prevented me from testing it more fully on other stars, and with other eye-pieces, but as to what I did see, no doubt remained. During an experience of many years, I cannot remember a similar illusion, excepting, perhaps once, with a single star, and even that may be questionable. It may possibly be referred to some unusual condition of atmosphere, producing, apparently, for a short time, something like double refraction in a vertical plane. Similar

effects, it is well known, are frequently perceptible in looking at distant shores or vessels across a considerable intervening surface of water-a species of mirage, of which I was a frequent spectator at Clevedon during the summer of 1846, especially in using a little hand-telescope.

NOTES ON THE HORNED PHEASANT.

BY R. C. BEAVAN,

Lieutenant Bengal Est., Member of Asiatic Society of Bengal. HAVING, during a two years' residence at Darjeeling, in the Sikkim Himalaya, had many opportunities of observing the habits of Ceriornis Satyra (Satyra melanocephala of Blyth), I take the liberty of adding a few remarks to the account published in the INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER for September.

I have seen them both in their native wilds and in captivity, in fact have often been after them gun in hand, attended by a single trusty Nepaul shikaree (sportsman). I have generally found them on the steep forest-clad slopes of the mountains, at an elevation of from 6 to 9000 feet above the sea. They generally prefer the neighbourhood of water, but are, as far as my experience goes, always found among the densest underwood, and where the greater part of the vegetation consists of oak, magnolia, ilex, etc., and the other trees of that zone. Seldom seen in trees, except when disturbed by a dog, on hearing a human footstep they invariably run if they can, and it is anything but an easy matter in Sikkim to get a fair shot either at these or any other of the game birds that inhabit that country. When they do rise, they always fly down the side of the mountain, and the momentary glimpse one gets of a scarlet object between the trees, flying very rapidly, is to a man who perhaps for some hours previously has been toiling on hands and knees, and creeping through prickly bushes as silent as possible, under such circumstances anything but satisfactory. Shooting under such difficulties is therefore but little followed up by the Europeans; but those who want skins of birds, or game for the table, generally hire a native, either a Lepcha or a Nepal man, and they, by lying close near the known haunts of the birds, and imitating their call, draw them within shot.

These birds are generally found in pairs. The only time of year that even the natives can get at them is in the winter months, when the underwood is not so dense as at other times. The usual plan of capturing them is by making a low hedge, of about three feet high, of bushes, extending down the side of a hill, like the sides of a triangle with the base open. These

sides gradually converge until near the apex, where small gaps are constructed, each armed with a small noose. The birds are then gradually driven by men on foot-simply walking in line towards the base of operations I may call it-and the birds running on, instead of attempting to fly, run through the openings, and are caught in the nooses.

A curious fact with regard to this mode of capture remains to be noticed. The proportion of males to females are generally four or five of the former to one of the latter.

The birds are then brought into Darjeeling for sale, and fetch about 4s. each if it happens to be a dry season, but generally more. I have seen them sold at 2s. each. Early morning or in the evening are the times to go after them, the former preferred by the natives. They are then heard calling on all sides, and by dint of severe crawling and creeping one has the chance of a shot, which as likely as not will be at the bird running. The sportsman must avail himself of the very first glimpse of the bird to fire, or he will not be likely to see it a second time.

The lowest ranges of these mountains are inhabited from the plains to 3000 feet by the jungle fowl (Gallus ferrugineus); from 2000 to 6000 flourishes the Kallege, or Black Pheasant (Nycthemerus melanotus), and the Tree Partridge (Arboricula rufogularis), commonly called the Peura, or Pura; from 6000 to 9000, the Horned Tragopan, which is called "Moonal" by the natives; and higher still the Three-spurred Pheasant, and a larger species of Pura. Higher still again, in the region of the snows, is found the Himalayan Snow Pheasant.

Whether the Purple Moonal exists in Sikkim I am not able to say, having never seen one. The natives, however, on hearing my description of the bird, say it does.

The above are all the game birds of the pheasant and partridge tribe found, as far as we know yet, in Sikkim ; but no ornithologist having yet followed Dr. Hooker's example, and penetrated into the interior of the country, the fauna of it is only known by the collections made by native collectors employed by B. H. Hodgson, Esq., and others.

The other game birds I have noticed are a species of solitary snipe, and the common woodcock.

Ducks are found in the valleys on or near the streams, the course of which they follow up from the plains.

Immense flocks of duck, geese, cranes, and other wading birds of nearly allied tribes, are seen at various times of the year passing high overhead en route from the plains of Bengal to their inaccessible breeding places in Thibet.

They do not appear to alight in Sikkim, but when once fairly started from the plains, to fly straight to their destination,

generally by night. The lakes and marshes of India, during the cold weather, abound with these birds, which about April and May commence their migrations to the colder and apparently inhospitable climate of the Trans-Himalaya. OAKHILL, TORQUAY, Sept., 1863.

THE NEW BRITISH SAND-GROUSE.

(PALLAS'S THREE-TOED SAND-GROUSE-SYRRHAPTES PARA

DOXUS).

BY THOMAS J. MOORE,

Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London; Keeper of the Derby Museum, Liverpool.

To the students of any department of natural history a new or rare species is always an interesting subject; if it be beautiful in colour, or remarkable in form, the interest is proportionally increased; and if the family as well as the species be an addition to the fauna of his own country, that interest becomes very great indeed.

The ornithologist feels all this at least as keenly as any other naturalist, and his feelings are largely shared by very many, who, though not professed naturalists, yet delight in the wonders and beauties of nature.

The recent occurrence in Britain of numerous specimens of a very handsome bird allied to the grouse kind, and which has only within the last year or two been met with out of its native haunts of Central and Eastern Asia, is a case in point. Here is a bird recently new not only to England but to Europe, chaste and elegant in colour, and certainly most remarkable in form, and no other species of the same family has been known to visit the British islands. Some account of its history, of its occurrence in our own country, and of its structure and relationship, will doubtless be interesting to the readers of the INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER, and particularly so to such of them as are given to ornithological pursuits.

This bird, then, was first made known to naturalists in 1772 by Pallas, a learned and zealous German zoologist and traveller, in the service of the Empress Katharine. He appears, however, to have seen, at that time at least, only a single and not very perfect specimen, brought to him during his travels in Tartary, by one Nicholas Rytschkof, who obtained it in the Kirghiz steppes. Pallas published a figure and description of it under the name of Tetrao paradoxus, but without giving any information as to its habits, farther than that it was met within

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the sandy deserts about Dshibel Mamut. In calling it a Tetrao he followed the arrangement of Linnæus, who included under that generic term both the true grouse of high northern latitudes, and the widely different sand-grouse of the hotter parts of the Old World, with which the paradoxus is most nearly allied.

Temminck, early in the present century, proposed the generic term Pterocles for the various species of sand-grouse, and, shortly after, Illiger separated from these the single species under consideration, and called it Syrrhaptes paradoxus, the name by which it is now recognized by ornithologists. The English name of Pallas's Three-toed Sand-grouse, which has since come into general use, commemorates the name of its discoverer, and refers to one of the peculiarities of its structure (that of its, feet), which distinguishes it from all the species of Pterocles.

M. Delanoue and Dr. Eversmann appear to have been the next travellers who met with the Syrrhaptes, and who published their observations. M. Delanoue describes their walk as slow and laboured, and their flight rapid, direct, and elevated. "The nest is composed of the down of grasses, and placed among sand and stones under a bush. The eggs are four in number, of a reddish white colour, spotted with brown. The female quits her nest only at the last extremity. The Kirghiz call these birds Buldruk; and the Russians, Sadscha."

Dr. Eversmann states that the Syrrhaptes, in the western part of its range, never passes further to the north than latitude 46°; but that eastward it ranges into higher latitudes, being found on the high steppes of the Southern Altai Mountains, on the uppermost course of the Tschuja, in the neighbourhood of the Chinese outposts, where the Mongols call it Nukturu.

Skins of these birds have since found their way, at rare intervals, to various public and private collections, from the Gobi Steppe, from Lake Baikal, and from Bucharia; but nothing further became known of their history or range until the summer of 1859, when the first-recorded European specimens were obtained. We next hear of them as being brought, both alive and dead, in prodigious numbers, to the markets of Pekin, from whence several lots were brought alive to England and deposited in the Zoological Gardens of London. Finally, during the present summer, there has been quite an irruption of them in various parts of the country. As the propriety of including this species in the list of European birds rests upon the instances recorded in 1859 and in the present year, it is quite worth while to state them in some detail. Before doing so, however, it may be well to note that Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte included it in his Geographical and Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and North America (published in