5346 Birds. 



name of Lankey, a fine adult male of the mountain finch ( Fringilla 

 montifringillaj was shot by a farm-labourer as early as the 20th of 

 July : this is in itself a valuable fact, as it might in some way coun- 

 tenance the supposition that this beautiful species occasionally breeds 

 in our southern counties. It is a bird, according to the late Mr. 

 Yarrell, excessively rare as a summer visitant, and far from commonly 

 met with even in the winter months. The specimen in question was 

 in very handsome plumage, and it was its gay appearance that 

 attracted the notice of the man who shot it, as it was flying about a 

 hedge in company with some yellow buntings and greenfinches. 



The great capture near Barnstaple this season, to detail which I 

 have been chiefly led to connect together these rambling notes, has 

 been the cream-coloured courser {Charadrius cursorius), which was 

 shot by the Rev. J. Landon, of Braunton, early in the last week of the 

 past October: this is the first occurrence of this rare straggler to 

 Europe in North Devon, and, I believe, anywhere in the south- 

 western corner of England : the bird was met with in the Braunton 

 Marshes, and was fired at several times by the Rev. J. Landon and 

 his friend before they succeeded in killing it : Mr. Yarrell mentions 

 but four instances of its occurrence in the British islands, and these 

 are at very wide intervals. Two specimens of the peregrine falcon 

 (Falco peregrinus) have been secured in our neighbourhood this year. 

 I have myself shot several individuals of the curlew sandpiper (Tringa 

 subarquata) by the side of the Taw this summer, or on its sandy flats 

 during low water : two of these were adult males in fine summer 

 plumage ; the first I killed on the 14th of August, the second out of a 

 small flock as late as the 6th of September ; the last, singular to relate, 

 was in far brighter plumage than the one I obtained in August, and 

 had its breast and belly marked with the rich chestnut-red which 

 distinguishes this bird at once from any other of the genus : it gave 

 no symptoms of having commenced the autumn moult, while the 

 dunlins had some time previously been changing the gay colours in 

 which they appear during the bright summer months for that less con- 

 spicuous but far warmer dress in which they resist the icy winter 

 winds: owing to the singular richness of the plumage, together with 

 the circumstance of its having been obtained so late in the season, 

 I have considered this specimen of some little value, and have pre- 

 sented it to the Museum of the Ashmolean Society at Oxford. I have 

 had many opportunities this summer of observing the habits of this 

 beautiful little sandpiper, and consider it one of the most graceful of 

 the genus : it generally associates with the ringed plover and dunlin, 



