PRATINCOLE, 183 
Eggs.—Clutch, two; ground-colour pale stone, marked all over with bold 
markings of dark purplish-black, and underlying ones of smoky-grey ; axis 31 mm., 
diameter 24. 
Breeding-season—April, May. 
Distribution and forms.—Breeding in eastern Siberia, migrating southward to 
Australia in winter. The subspecies are imperfectly known, so that Mathews’s 
G. p. parryi may even later be recognised as separable from the form occurring in 
Java, the migration routes being as yet undetermined. 
Genus STILTIA. 
Stiltia Gray, Cat. Gen. Subgen. Birds, p. 111, Oct. 1855, ex Bonaparte MS. Type (by original 
designation): Glareola isabella Vieillot. 
Rhimphalea Heine und Reichenow, Nomencl. Mus. Hein., p. 338, (pref. Sept.) 1890. New 
name for Stiltta Gray. 
Glareoline birds with short bills, very long wings, short tail, and long legs and 
small feet. 
The bill is short, very broad at the base, tip decurved and sharp ; the lower 
mandible straight, gonydial angle a little marked, but tip slightly decurved. The 
wings are very long and pointed, the first primary somewhat attenuated and exceeding 
the second by nearly aninch. The tail is short and slightly emarginate, only about 
a third, or less, the length of the wing. The legs are long, the metatarsus is regularly 
scutellate, both before and behind ; the toes comparatively long and slender, the 
claws very long, the middle claw not at all pectinated ; hind-toe present. The 
combination of short Glareoline bill, very long attenuate wings, short tail and long 
Cursorine legs, make this genus distinctive and unmistakable. 
127. Stiltia isabella—PRATINCOLE. 
Gould, Vol. VI., pl. 22 (pt. xxt.), June Ist, 1846. Mathews, Vol. III., pt. 4, pl. 170, Dec. 
31st, 1913. 
Glareola isabella Vieillot, Analyse nouv. Ornith., p. 69, April 14th, 1816: Australia. 
Glareola grallaria Temminck, Manuel d’Orn., 2¢ ed., Vol. II., p. 503, Oct. 21st, 1820: South 
Asia. 
Glareola australis Leach, Trans. Linn. Soe. (Lond.), Vol. XIII., pt. 1., p. 132, 1821: Australia. 
DIsTRIBUTION.—Australia generally. Not Tasmania. 
Adult male-—Pale olive-brown on the head, back, scapulars, and wings ; all the 
feathers margined with rufous except on the rump; hind-neck, fore-neck, and 
breast rufous ; bastard-wing, primary-coverts and quills blackish, the short inner- 
most primaries pale brown and edged with white on the inner webs, the shaft of the 
outer primary conspicuously white, secondaries uniform olive-brown ; upper tail- 
coverts white ; base of tail and outer pair of tail-feathers also white with a broad 
subterminal black band, which becomes much narrower on the outer feathers, 
tipped with brown on the outer webs and white on the inner ones ; lores blackish ; 
throat inclining to white ; flanks and abdomen maroon-chestnut ; vent and under 
tail-coverts white ; axillaries and under wing-coverts black ; bill, base scarlet, tip 
black ; iris and feet brown. Total length 210 mm.; culmen 15, wing 198, tail 60, 
tarsus 50. 
Adult female—Similar to the adult male. 
Immature—Have very broad reddish-buff edges to the feathers of the upper- 
surface, giving it a uniform appearance. 
Nestling in down.—Does not appear to have been described. 
Nest.—A depression in the soil. 
Eggs.—Clutch, two ; ground-colour pale stone, marked all over (sometimes 
