652 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
a continual shower of locusts’ wings falling on the ground. At 
another time, when I was stationed at Fort Peddie, and the country 
was suffering from the effects of a long drought and was overrun 
with unusual quantities of ants and grasshoppers, we were visited 
by thousands of these birds, which remained many days devouring 
these pests. Though the locust-birds are excellent eating, no one 
ever thinks of destroying them, and they were so fearless that, 
though I often rode or ran amongst them to test their tameness, 
only a few in my immediate vicinity would rise, the rest continuing 
to feed; but every ten minutes or so the whole mass would rise 
of their own accord and fly, first a few yards to the right, and then 
to the left, in a slanting direction, presenting alternately a black 
and white wave of birds some miles in length, a sight never to 
be forgotten by the spectator.” 
General colour above, cinereous brown, glossed with green ; this 
shade extending over the wing-feathers, which are black ; throat 
tawny-white, with faint brown streaks, and separated from the 
breast, which is cinereous, by a crescent-shaped collar; belly, vent, 
and rump, white; tail long and forked, the two outer and longest 
pair of feathers white, tipped with black ; the rest white at the base, 
brown at the ends; legs black in a dried skin, but reddish in a 
fresh one; eyelids and cere at base of bill also red. Length, 10” ; 
wings, 7” 3”; tail, 4” 3”. 
Fig. Gurney, Ibis, 1868, pl. 8. 
623. GuaREOLA praTINcoLA, LD. Red-winged Pratincole. 
The only specimen of this species which has come under our 
notice in the colony was shot by Mr. S. Gird, near George, in 1870, 
and Mr. Ayres has forwarded a single example from Natal. Mr. 
Andersson has likewise recorded it-as not uncommon near Jake 
N’gami; but as Mr. Gurney well points out, it is quite probable 
that at the time he wrote Mr. Andersson was not aware of 
the occurrence of G. melanoptera in South Africa, and had not 
distinguished between the two species. 
This Pratincole may be distinguished from the preceding bird by 
the chestnut colouring of the under wing-coverts, the same parts in 
Nordmann’s Pratincole being black. 
Fig. Dresser, B. Eur. vii, pl. 513, fig. 1. 
