A beautiful specimen of a rare bird, the Cream-Coloured Courser,
ek in Hackney Marsh, near the
‘th incredible swiftness, and it was very

paragraph appea red :—‘ Rara avis.
ee y : was shot this we Victoria Station, by Mr. G. Beresford,
Uropeus, Was §

Cursorius I:
of the White House. It was found in the ope
difficult to make it take wing.”

In October 1864 a specimen was kille
Mr. T. H. Allis, of York: this is the last mst
It will be observed that all the specimens enumerated hav
nt of Europe it is scarcely more plentiful than with us, !
countries, in the neighbourheod of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, bordering ont native habitat of
the species, where, as might naturally be inferred, its appearance 1s more frequent. ‘The very aspect of the

sand-coloured plumage, or the
of the Sahara; and in such localities it dwells

0) marsh, and ran W

d near Maryport, m Cumberland, and is now in the possession of
ance known to me of the occurrence of the bird in Britam,
e been taken in England, and always in autumn.
excepting in the more southern

On the contine

bird, whether we regard its buff- or peculiar structure of its legs, indicates
; and sandy plains, a creature
th of the equator, from Tunis to Egypt,
also a specimen from the Cape de

that it is a denizen of desert
throughout the greater part of Africa, nor
Punjab and Scinde, whence I have received se
Verd Islands.

For a knowledge of its
Mr. Hewitson the following notes respecting them :—

Sahara, and beyond

in Persia, and in the

veral examples ; I have

eves we are ‘ndebted to the researches of the Rev. H. B. Tristram, who sent to
« Although during the winter of 1856-57 I penetrated
several hundred miles into the Algerian its limits as far as between latitude 31° and 380°,
came under my observation, being evidently for the most part only a summer migrant
e 1857 I twice met with small flocks of them on the Hauts plateaux,
During the previous summer of 1856 I had met

yet this bird only once
to those regions. In the month of Jun
en Biskra and Batna, to the south of Constantine.
with the bird several times in the Western Sahara, north of Leghouat, and especially in the neighbourhood
of Ain Oosera, a solitary caravansary in the desert, kept up by the French government as a halting-place.
at the time, I was unable to detect their nest ; but shortly
who had assisted me in my search, and who had in pre-
as omelets along with those of Pterocles setarius,

betwe

Though certain the birds were breeding there
after my departure the keeper of the caravansary,
vious years frequently taken the eggs and cooked them
found me the nest and sent me the eggs, which, he affirms, ar
have been expected from the character of the bird. It makes no nest whatever, but deposits its eggs on the
bare soil in the most arid plains. They bear a very striking resemblance both in shape and colour to some
The delicate undulations are not easily imitated in a drawing.”

« Recent Discoveries in European Oology,”

e always three in number, as indeed might

of the eggs of the Norfolk Plover.
The above notes are extracted from Mr. Hewitson’s paper on
’ for 1859, in the plate accompanying which the egg is represented as nearly round in
olour, minutely streaked with pale violet, orange, and light red.
bird belongs, five, six, or seven species are known.

published in the ‘Ibis
form, and of a delicate pale buff or cream-c

Of the isolated and well-defined genus to which this
They are all natives of Africa and the hotter parts of India, and are so swift of foot, and turn so frequently
when running, as to present the appearance of pieces of paper blown about by the wind.

The general plumage of the adults is of a light cinnamon-brown, becoming much paler on the under
surface, especially on the chin and abdomen, which parts are nearly white ; forehead cinnamon-red ; occiput
and part of the nape ashy grey; back of the neck black ; from above the eye to the occiput a band of snow-
white, and below it another of black; primaries brownish black 5 secondaries brownish black on the inner
web, cinnamon-brown on the outer, with a small patch of brownish black near the extremities, and the tips
white ; tail pale cinnamon, all, except the two central feathers, with a conspicuous, somewhat crescent-
shaped, mark of blackish brown near the extremity, beyond which the tip is white; the black marks
occupy both webs of all the feathers on which they occur, except the outer one, on which the black mark is
absent from the external web; they are scarcely perceptible when the tail is closed; bill fleshy brown at
He ts blackish brown towards the tip; legs and feet creamy white ; nails black ; irides brown.

The young birds until they are nearly adult have the feathers of the upper surface crossed near the tip by
a nee band of dark brown ; in other respects the old and young are very similar.

The Plate represents two adults and a young bird; the front figure is of the natural size, the others some-

what reduced.