CORRIRA—COURSER 107 



nected by a wel), for their long stiff tails, and for the absence, in 

 tlie adult, of any exterior nostrils. When gorged, or when the 

 state of the tide precludes fishing, they are fond of sitting on an 

 elevated perch, often with extended wings, and in this attitude 

 the}' will remain motionless for a considerable time, as though 

 hanging themselves out to dry, but hardly, as the fishermen report, 

 sleeping the while. It was perhaps this peculiarity that struck the 

 observation of Milton, and i:)rompted his well-known similitude of 

 Satan to a Cormorant {Farad. Lost, iv. 194); but when not thus 

 behaving they themselves provoke the more homely comparison of 

 a row of black bottles. Their voracity is proverbial. 



CORRIRA, a bird so named and described by Aldrovandus, as 

 occurring in Italy ; but never, so far as is known, seen since, 

 and apjiarently fictitious. 



COTIXGA, see Chatterer. 



COUCAL, Levaillant's name, compounded, says Cuvier {Rhgne 

 Anim. p. 425, note), of coucou and alouette, adopted by several 

 English ornithologists,^ and especially by Gould (Handb. B. Austral. 

 i. pp. 634, 636), as the equivalent of Illiger's Centrojjus, a widely 

 spread group of Cumlidx (CuCKOW), chiefly of terrestrial habit, 

 and having the hallux terminated by a straight spine-like claw, 

 whence the name and that of " Lark-heeled " Cuckows applied to 

 them absurdly by some writers. The Coucals may be taken to 

 form a very distinct subfamily, Centropodinx, and have been divided 

 into half-a-dozen genera or more. They inhabit almost all parts of 

 the Ethiopian Region from Egypt to the Cape Colony, as well as 

 Madagascar : one species occurs in India, where it is known as the 

 " Crow-Pheasant," and others range to the eastward as far as China 

 and throughout the Archipelago to New Guinea and Australia. 

 They build their own nests, and lay eggs with white, chalky shell. 



COULTERXEB, a common name of the Puffin, from the 

 likeness of its bill to the coulter of a plough. 



COURSER, apparently Lewin's rendering {B. Gr. Brit. vi. 

 p. 48) of Latham's word Ciirsorius, a genus established by him in 

 1790 for the Coure-vtte of Buffon {H. N. Ois. viii. 

 p. 128), who had already seen that, though allied 

 to the Plovers, it required separation. It Avas first 

 known from an example taken in France (whence cursorius. 



Gmelin called it Charadrius gallicus), and Buffon in (^ft^^i' Swainson.) 

 1781 had seen only one other, though that was from Coromandel and 

 was of a distinct species. The third specimen, which was of the 



^ Mr. Sharpe (B. S. Afr. ed. 2, p. 161, pi. v. fig. 1), however, has bestowed 

 the name on a species, Ccuthinocheres australis {P. Z. S. 1873, p. 609), which 

 apparently does not possess the Lark-like claAv^ whence the name is derived. 



