C 'ream-Coloured Courser. 375 



called Eastdown, which was particularly bare of vegetation, as is 

 generally the case at that season of the year with all down lands. 

 The day was somewhat stormy, the wind south-west, and Mr. 

 Langton and his companion were following a wild covey with a 

 brace of young pointers, when one of them stood on the open, 

 down, and suddenly a Cream-coloured Courser took wing, almost 

 immediately under the dog's nose, and apparently flew at the 

 dog's face, who snapped at the bird. Indeed, in a second letter 

 with which Mr. Langton most obligingly favoured me at the 

 time, he calls particular attention to this strange fearlessness on 

 the part of the bird ; which, however, is quite in accordance with 

 its general character. It then flew with a lazy kind of flight 

 about two hundred yards, and again settled on the open down, 

 and began to run at a moderate pace, reminding Mr. Langton of 

 the gait of the Landrail. That gentleman immediately followed 

 it, and, when within forty yards, shot it as it ran upon the ground. 

 It was not heard to utter any cry, and the keepers who were 

 present conjectured it to have been wounded; but as they seem 

 to have arrived at that conclusion solely from the unwillingness 

 of the bird to take flight, and its apparent disregard of danger, 

 for which its natural disposition fully accounts, no regard need 

 be paid to that surmise. When first found by the dog, it was 

 lying so close that, until it rose, though from the bare down, 

 nothing was seen of it. It was sent to Mr. Gardner, the well- 

 known taxidermist in Oxford Street, who stuffed it, and who 

 kindly communicated with me on the subject. 



The Cream-coloured Courser, Swift-foot, or Plover, is a native 

 of the sandy deserts of Africa, to which its pale bluff plumage 

 closely assimilates in colour : hence the name isabeUinus, ' sand- 

 coloured,' which is most appropriate, for the colour of its plumage 

 is so well matched with the sand of the desert which it inhabits, 

 that it is as difficult to distinguish it when squatted on the 

 ground, as it is to see the Ptarmigan amidst the rocks and snow 

 patches of Norway. This remarkable assimilation in colour to 

 the warm-tinted sand it shares with many other species of birds 

 which frequent the same localities, and struck me as very ob- 



