SOUTH AFRICAN COURSERS 87 



eyes, the delicate rufous-fawn plumage of the upper 

 and under parts — springbok colour one might call 

 it — so well harmonizing with the desert sands over 

 which these birds love to course ; the black wings 

 tipped with white, the ashy rump and nape, tail 

 neatly barred and tipped in black and white, and the 

 snowy chin, thighs, and lower part of the belly, all 

 unite to add peculiar beauty and distinction to this 

 elegant little courser. 



Burchell's coursers range about the great open plains 

 with amazing swiftness. They are more common, 

 and run in greater numbers than any others of their 

 kind — I have seen as many as fifteen in a band — yet, 

 from the protective nature of their colouring, they 

 are, when in repose, extremely hard to pick out. 

 They seem to me to be more difficult to force into 

 flight than almost any other bird, and trust almost 

 entirely to their legs for safety. As the fleet and 

 elegant springbok seems, among mammals, exactly 

 created to adorn the great plains and karroos, so, 

 among birds, Burchell's courser, a true child of the 

 desert and the sun, is peculiarly suited to the flat 

 and parched solitudes upon which it is always found. 



Of the five known South African coursers which 

 I have attempted to describe, all are extremely 

 interesting. The development of these plover-like 

 birds, their singular adaptability to their desert 

 surroundings, their great powers of locomotion, yet. 



