492 Mr. Fox on some rare English Birds. 



specimen of, this kind, which was shot and captured about two 

 years before in that neighbourhood by one of Mr. Mawe's work* 

 men. Its wing only being injured, it was brought home alive, 

 (though not without a severe injury to its victor in having his hand, 

 tranfixed by its claws, whilst endeavouring to secure it,) and it 

 was presented by him to Mr. Vallance, the intelligent keeper of 

 Mr. Mawe^s Museum. This gentleman placed it for the mo- 

 ment in his garden in the front of his house, and on its being 

 fed, after two days fasting, it became tame and established itself 

 on a piece of artificial rock work, which it had scarcely quitted 

 for an instant from the period of its capture to the time I saw 

 it. On this appropriate and elegant pedestal I doubt not it has 

 been often seen by many who have been visitors or passengers 

 in Matlock, though its species seems not to have been dis- 

 tinguished. As its age is now well known, its plumage is worthy 

 of being noticed as descriptive of the adult bird. Its head is very- 

 hoary, and somewhat resembling the colour of the Honey Buz- 

 zard's, and the bases of its tail-feathers are deeply white for above 

 half their length. These two marks seem most distinctive of the 

 full grown Bird, in which respect it exactly resembles the speci- 

 men at present preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. 

 When I saw it, it was fed on a rat a day ; to procure a constant 

 supply of which, the exertions of most of the stable-keepers in 

 Matlock were put in requisition. 



CueAM-CO LOURED SwiFTFOOT. (Selbl/.) 



Cursorius isabellinus. Temm. 



Cream-coloured Plover. Lath. Syn. V. p. 217. Supp, 

 p. 25. t. 116. 



Le Courvite. Buff. VIII. p. 128. PI. Enl. 7Q5, 



The capture of this Bird may be considered as one of the rarest 

 which has occurred in England of late years. It was shot October 

 15, 1827, under Timberwood Hill, in Charnwood Forest, Leices- 

 tershire, by a tenant of Mr. T. Gisborne's, who resides at Charley 

 Mill, near that place. He described it as coming flying over his 



