132 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY; 



counties of England, mostly from the south, but the species 

 has also been met with in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, North- 

 umberland, and Cumberland. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Cream-coloured Courser 

 is a bird of the deserts of the Mediterranean Sub-region, 

 and the Canary Islands, on one of which, Fuerteventura, it 

 is so plentiful that hundreds of its eggs have been collected 

 there during recent years. It is found as far south as Kordo- 

 fan in Africa, and thence extends through Arabia to Persia 

 and Central Asia and North-western India. 



Habits. In Colonel Irby's " Ornithology of the Straits of 

 Gibraltar," one of the most interesting notes is that on the 

 Cream-coloured Courser, as recorded by the French naturalist 

 Favier, whose MSS. Colonel Irby saved from oblivion. The 

 latter writes : "Their food is entirely insects or larvae, parti- 

 cularly Pentatoma torquata, and different kinds of grasshoppers. 

 They are met with in small parties, usually frequenting dry 

 arid plains, where they spread out in all directions, running 

 after insects, and are very wary and difficult to get a shot at. 

 Their cry of alarm is much like that of the Plover. They rest 

 and sleep in a sitting position, with their legs doubled under 

 them. Should they not fly away when approached, they run 

 off with astonishing swiftness, manoeuvring to get out of 

 sight behind stones and clods of earth, there, kneeling down 

 and stretching the body and head flat on the ground, they 

 endeavour to make themselves invisible, though all the time 

 their eyes are fixed on the object which disturbs them, and 

 they keep on the alert ready to rush off again if one continues 

 to approach them." Favier kept more than one in confine- 

 ment, and obtained thirty-six eggs, which, until the recent in- 

 flux of specimens from Fuerteventura, were almost the only 

 genuine ones in collections. The only note which he heard 

 the species utter he renders by the word "rererer" It will 

 be noticed that the method of concealment adopted by the 

 Courser is not unlike that practised by the Thick-knee. 



Nest. None, the eggs being laid in a little depression 

 among stones, which closely resemble them. 



Eggs. Two in number, stone-colour in general appearance, 

 thickly mottled all over with brown dots and scribblings, some 



