OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 113 



Family CUBSOBIID.E. Genus CXJBSOBIUS. 



CREAM=COLOURED COURSER. 



CUBSOBIUS GALLICUS (Gmelin). 



Charadrius gallicus, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 692 (1788). 



Cursorius europeeus, Latham ; Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 42 (1852) ; Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 

 4, iii. p. 238 (1883). 



Cursorius gallicus (Gmel.), Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 425, pi. 544 (1875) ; Seebohm, 

 Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 63 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 221 

 (1894) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. pt. xxviii. (1894) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. 

 iii. p. 131 (1896) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 34 (1896) ; Seebohm, Col. 

 Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 128 pi. 36 (1896). 



Geographical distribution British: The Cream-coloured Courser 

 is a rare straggler on autumn migration to England and Wales. Only one instance 

 of its occurrence in Scotland (in Lanarkshire) ; none in Ireland. About a score 

 examples have been met with up to the present time, in the following counties : 

 Northumberland, Cumberland, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, 

 Suffolk, Middlesex, Kent, Hants, Wilts (one example as recently as October, 1896), 

 Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Cardigan, and in " North Wales." Foreign : 

 Southern and Western Palaearctic, and the extreme north-eastern portion of the 

 Ethiopian regions. Of accidental occurrence only in Europe : Holland, Germany, 

 France, Spain, Italy, and South-east Bussia. It breeds from the Canary Islands 

 and possibly the Cape Verd in the west, right across the sand plains and plateaux 

 of Northern Africa, southward on to the Sahara, and in Kordofan, and possibly 

 Abyssinia, in the east. Thence northwards it probably breeds throughout Arabia, 

 the Trans-Caucasian steppes, Persia, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, the Punjaub, 

 Scinde and Bajputana. 



Allied forms. Cursorius gallicus bogohibovi, an inhabitant of the 

 Murgab district on the Persian frontiers of Bussian Turkestan. Of doubtful 

 distinctness, but said to be larger than the ordinary form, and to have the under 

 wing coverts of a different colour. C. somalensis, known only from a single 

 specimen obtained on Somali Land, the eastern horn of Africa. Differs from the 

 Cream-coloured Courser in being much smaller (length of wing 5'3 inches instead 

 of 6'0 to 6'3 inches). Other important characters are the axillaries and inner- 

 most under wing coverts, which are greyish-buff instead of nearly black, and the 



