Occurrence of the Cream-Coloured Courser in Wilts. 71 
another specimen, at Elston, near Tilshead, on October 2nd, 1855 
(see my Birds of Wilts, p.3874). Mr. Bovill kindly writes me word 
that the bird in question was running along the down when he first 
saw it, but rose on the wing as he approached, when he at once shot 
it. He describes it as appearing to be tired after a long flight, and 
indeed it is probable that it had been blown across the sea and over 
Salisbury Plain by some of the heavy gales which had been pre- 
vailing from the south-east for two days previously. 
There are two things which strike me as very remarkable in the 
occurrence of this straggler. In the first place it has appeared in 
almost exactly the same locality as its predecessor of forty years 
ago: and again it has arrived, as almost all of its fellows which 
have appeared from time to time in England have done (see 
Seebohm’s British Birds, vol. iii., pp. 63-4), in the month of October, 
when the equinoctial gales are prevalent from the west and south- 
west ; and yet the true home of the Cream-coloured Courser is the 
East and the South. 
Since the occurrence of our Wiltshire specimen I learn, on the 
authority of the very able editor of the Zoologist, that another 
Cream-coloured Courser was shot in Jersey, on October 19th, and 
Myr. Harting suggests that in all probability these two birds left 
their summer haunts in company, but encountering the south-western 
gales which lately prevailed, got blown out of their course and 
separated en route. 
The bird was exhibited at the Linnean Society’s Meeting on 
November 5th, by Mr. Harting, and notices of it appeared in the 
_ Atheneum, November 21st, 1896, and in the Zvologist, November, 
1896, p. 434. 
AtFrRED CHARLES SMITH. 
Old Park, Devizes, 
November 26th, 1896. 
