48 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



bird more particularly), which, after all may have been 

 described as females under the impression that a far 

 greater sexual difference existed during the winter 

 season. 



The little bustard breeds abundantly in some parts 

 of France, but in Germany, singularly enough, it is 

 only known, as in our own country, as an annual winter 

 visitant, though irregular in the time and place of its 

 occurrence. 



CURSORIUS EUROP^US, Latham. 



CREAM-COLOUEED COURSER. 



This very rare straggler, from more southern climes, 

 has not hitherto been included amongst our accidental 

 visitants, but having been killed once in the adjoining 

 county,* and observed on two separate occasions in 



* In the " Magazine of ISfatural History " for 1831 (vol. iv., 

 p. 163), in "A list of scarce birds killed in Suffolk since the autumn 

 of 1827, sent as addenda to the list of Mr. J. D. Hoy, of Stoke- 

 by-Nayland (vol. iii., p. 436)," Mr. Edward Acton, of Grundis- 

 burgh, states that a bird of this species was " shot at Freston, near 

 Aldborough, on October 3rd, 1828, by a shepherd of the name of 

 Smith," and this specimen is believed by Dr. Bree (" Field," 1867, 

 vol. XXX., p. 465) to be the one preserved in the late Mr. Hoy's collec- 

 tion, at Boile's court, near Brentwood, the case containing Mr. 

 Hoy's bird, being labelled, "shot in 1828." This example is not 

 mentioned by Yarrell, but in the five instances given by that 

 author of the occurrence of the cream-coloured courser in England 

 — one in East Kent, which is now in the British museum, and was 

 figured and described by Latham in the first supplement to his 

 "General Synopsis of Birds" (pi. 116, p. 264), published in 1787, 

 and said (see " Zool. Jour.," iii., p. 493, and " Naturalist, " 1837, vol., 

 i., p. 133) to have been purchased subsequently by Donovan for 

 eighty-three guineas ; one in North Wales in 1793 ; one at Wetherby 



