Occurrence of the Cream-Coloured Courser in Wilts. 71 



another specimen, at Elston, near Tilsliead, on October 2nd, 1855 

 (see my Birds of Wilts, p. 374). Mr. Bovill kindly writes me word 

 that the bird in question was running along the down when he first 

 saw it, but rose on the wing as he approached, when he at once shot 

 it. He describes it as appearing to be tired after a long flight, and 

 indeed it is probable that it had been blown across the sea and over 

 Salisbury Plain by some of the heavy gales which had been pre- 

 vailing from the south-east for two days previously. 



There are two things which strike me as very remarkable in the 

 occurrence of this straggler. In the first place it has appeared in 

 almost exactly the same locality as its predecessor of forty years 

 ago : and again it has arrived, as almost all of its fellows which 

 have appeared from time to time in England have done (see 

 Seebohni's British Birds, vol. iii., pp. 63-4), in the month of October, 

 when the equinoctial gales are prevalent from the west and south- 

 west ; and yet the true home of the Cream-coloured Courser is the 

 East and the South. 



Since the occurrence of our Wiltshire specimen I learn, on the 

 authority of the very able editor of the Zoologist, that another 

 Cream-coloured Courser was shot in Jersey, on October 19th, and 

 Mr. Harting suggests that in all probability these two birds left 

 their summer haunts in company, but encountering the south-western 

 gales which lately prevailed, got blown out of their course and 

 separated en route. 



The bird was exhibited at the Linnean Society's Meeting on 

 November 5th, by Mr. Harting, and notices of it appeared in the 

 Athenceum, November 21st, 1896, and in the Zoologist, November, 

 1896, p. 434. 



Alfred Chab.les Smith. 



Old Park, Devizes, 



November 26th, 1896. 



