in European Oology. 79 



CuRSORius GALLicus, Gmcl. Cream-coloured Courser. (C 

 isabellinus, Temm.) Egg, Plate II. fig. 3. 



Although rare in Europe, this species has for more than half 

 a century been recorded as a British bird. For the discovery 

 of its eggs, ornithologists are indebted to the Kev. H. B. Tris- 

 tram, who has kindly sent me the following notes : " Although 

 during the winter of 1856-57 1 penetrated several hundred 

 miles into the Algerian Sahara, and beyond its limits as far as 

 between latitude 31" and 30°, yet this bird only once came 

 under my observation, being evidently for the most part only a 

 summer migrant to those regions. In the month of June 1857, 

 I twice met with small flocks of them on the Hants plateaux be- 

 tween Biskra and Batna, to the south of Constantine. During the 

 previous summer of 1856, 1 had met with the bird several times 

 in the western Sahara, north of Laghouat, and especially in the 

 neighbourhood of Ain Oosera, a solitary caravansary in the desert, 

 kept up by the French government as a military halting-place. 



" Though certain that the birds were breeding there at the 

 time, I was unable to detect their nest ; but shortly after my 

 departure, the keeper of the caravansary, who had assisted me in 

 my search, and who had in previous years frequently taken the 

 eggs, and cooked them as omelets along with those of the 

 Pterocles setarius, found the nest and sent me the eggs, three 

 in number. According to his account, the Courser always ad- 

 heres to this number, as indeed might 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.'^ 



Eggs sent from Tangiers, deposited by birds in a state of con- 

 finement, and consequently smaller and more faintly coloured than 

 the one now figured, are in the collections of Mr. Gurney and Mr. 

 A. Newton. Theone figured bears a very striking resemblance both 

 in shape and colour to some of the eggs of the Norfolk Plover. 

 The delicate undulations are not easily imitated in a drawing. 



TuRNix AFRiCANUs, Dcsfout.; Gray's Genera, p. 510. {Hemi- 

 podius tachydromus, Temm.) Andalusian Quail. Eggs, Plate II. 

 figs. 4, 5. 



This species has been introduced as a British bird by Mr. 



