The Zoologist— February, 1871. 2475 



one of which was beef. I was much pleased with the sight of 

 Biaunton Burrows, an extensive tract of sand-hills bordering the 

 sea, and once the famed locality for Deilephila Euphorbic©, and the 

 varied character of the country in the vicinity appears suitable and 

 attractive to all kinds of zoological rarities. Richard's pipit and 

 Pallas' sand grouse have been killed there; and on calling at the 

 house of a gentleman in Braunton we were shown a lovely specimen 

 of the elegant creamcoloured comser {Cursori us Isabellitnis), ^Yen 

 mounted and in nearly perfect adult male plumage, showing only 

 a few faint semilinear markings peculiar to the young. The last 

 great bustard killed in North Devon previous to the above men- 

 tioned occurred at Bratton Clovelly in 1851, and was recorded by 

 me in 'The Naturalist:' I saw that bird in the flesh, and examined 

 the contents of its stomach, which consisted of turnip-leaves mixed 

 with a quantity of flat stones, some about the size of a sixpence. 

 The down at the base of the feathers of this as well as those 

 of the Braunton birds were of a beautiful rose-colour, which soon 

 faded to a dull yellow. Most of the country people in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Braunton considered the bustards to be wild turkeys, 

 and a paragraph worded as follows appeared in the ' North Devon 

 Journal:'— "Wild Fowl.— During Christmas week a flock of eight 

 wild turkeys visited this parish, and alighted in a field at Croyde. 

 They were seen by Mr. William Quick, who followed and shot one, 

 which weighed upwards of 9 fts., and was much admired. The 

 others soon took their flight to the west, and have not made a 

 second appearance." When at the Barnstaple Railway Station 

 we observed a man with some feathers in his hat, and on speaking 

 to him concerning them he replied, taking off" his hat and pointing 

 to a particular one, " This here, sir, belonged to one of them turkey 

 buzzards."— J. G. 



In Devonshire. — The most interesting ornithological event since 

 the irruption of the sand grouse is certainly the occurrence of a 

 flock of as many as seven great bustards at Braunton, near Barn- 

 staple. Two out of the seven (both, I am told,* females, one 

 weighing seven pounds, the other nine pounds), were shot, one at 

 Braunton on the 31st of December, 1870, and the other at a place 

 called Croyde, a kw miles off", where the seven had been seen that 



* One of them I have not seen, and the other I only received after it was 

 stuffed and set up. — C. S. 



