48 GLAREOLA. PRATINCOLE. 



because, says he, they have the same wings and tail ; an 

 argument worthy of a compiler. It is useless to refute at 

 length this error. I have been in Hungary in the vast 

 marshes of lakes Neusidel and Balaton, surrounded with 

 some hundreds of these birds, and I can assert that they 

 have nothing of swallows but the celerity of flight, with 

 which the Skimmers, Terns, Lestres, and Petrels, are also 

 endowed in the highest degree." Many other opinions suc- 

 ceed ; but to settle all disputes as to the affinities of the 

 Glareolae, it is only necessary to inspect the intestinal canal 

 of a single specimen. The birds to which they might be or 

 have been assimilated, namely, the Swallows, Goatsuckers, 

 Grouse, and Sandpipers, have digestive organs well charac- 

 terized. Mr. Gould, who might have settled the question, 

 still remarks : — " I have for many years questioned the pro- 

 priety of placing the Pratincoles in the same group with the 

 Plovers, or even in the same order, believing them as I do 

 to be a terrestrial form of the Fissirostral birds. Linnaeus 

 placed them near the Swallows, and I think he was right in 

 so doing ; and Mr. Blyth, one of the most philosophical of 

 ornithologists, entertains, I believe, the same opinion ; but 

 as nearly all other writers have placed them with the Chara- 

 driadse, I have adopted their view of the subject, and have 

 accordingly placed them in that group." Mr. Thompson, 

 also, places it at the head of the Plovers. 



