Cursorius gallicus (J. F. Qmeliri).
CEEAM-COLOURED COURSER.
CURSORIUS GALLICUS (J. F. Gmelin).
Charadrius gallicus, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 692 (1788).
Cursor europseus, Naum. vii. p. 77.
Cursorius europseus, Macg. iv. p. 42.
Cursorius gallicus, Yarr. ed. 4, iii. p. 238 ; Dresser, vn.
p. 425.
Cour-vite isabelle, French.
Some twenty specimens of this beautiful desert-bird
have met with death at the hands of man in our country,
and their respective occurrences been duly recorded
by competent persons. It is difficult to assign any
cause for the visits of these ill-advised lovers of sun,
sand, and freedom from human molestation, to our
humid and over-populated Islands, especially as there is
no evidence that the Courser is even a regular local
migrant in Africa—the country of its birth. I have
never seen a Courser alive, or even recently dead, and
therefore I make no apology to my readers for
quoting at length from Mr. E. G. Meade-Waldo s most
interesting “ Notes on the Birds of the Canary Islands,”
published in ‘ The Ibis ’ for 1889. I may mention that