360 Mr. J. H. Gurney's List of Birds from Natal 



EupoDOTis CAFFRA, Licht. Stanley Bustard. 



Male. Iris light hazel ; bill, upper mandible dusky, under 

 yellowish ; tarsi and feet dingy yellowish white. This specimen 

 weighed in the flesh 20 lbs. It was one of five which I met 

 with, all apparently of the same size or thereabouts. It fell dead 

 at a hundred yards, struck by one of Eley's green cartridges. 



ToTANUS GLAREOLA (Linn.). Wood Sandpiper. 



Female. Iris very dark brown ; bill black ; nostrils linear ; 

 tarsi and feet dingy olive-green. Contents of stomach, insects. 



Small inland streamlets and shallow pools seem to be the 

 favourite haunts of these birds ; they are found either solitary 

 or in pairs, and rise much like a Snipe, their flight being very 

 rapid. 



Gallinago major (Gmel.). Great Snipe. 



The females appear to be much more scarce than the males. 

 I should say, eight or ten of the latter to one of the former 

 would be about the proportion. The stomachs of these Snipes 

 contain small insects, soft beetles, &c. 



Parra capensis. Smith. Lesser African Jacana. 



Iris light hazel ; bill bright brown ; tarsi and feet light 

 greenish brown. The male is precisely similar in size and 

 plumage to the female. I found numbers of these beautiful 

 Jacanas on the Sea-cow Lake. In habits they much resemble 

 the larger kind, running with ease on the weeds which appear 

 on the surface ; they are rather shy. If, in searching for food, 

 they happen to approach a large Jacana {Parra africana), they 

 are immediately chased away ; and as both kinds are plentiful in 

 that locality, and feed all day long, there is constant squabbling 

 amongst them. There is one habit they have which I have not 

 noticed in the other Jacanas, viz. the dipping the head up and 

 down, like some of the smaller Plovers. 



[With reference to the concluding observation of Mr. Ayres, it 

 may be worthy of remark that Mr. W, K. Parker, alluding to 

 the anatomical affinities of the genus Parra, in the ' Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society' for 1863 (p. 513), uses the following 

 expressions : — " The Jacanas are essentially Plovers, though they 

 have something of the Rail in them, especially in their skull ; 



