CORRIRA—COURSER 107 
nected by a web, for their long stiff tails, and for the absence, in 
the adult, of any exterior nostrils. W ion 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 
they 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 prompted his well-known similitude of 
Satan to a Cormorant (Parad. 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 apparently fictitious. 
COTINGA, see CHATTERER. 
COUCAL, Levaillant’s name, compounded, says Cuvier (Regne 
Anim. p. 425, note), of coucow and alouette, adopted by several 
English ornithologists,! and especially by Gould (Handb, B. Austral. 
i. pp. 634, 636), as the equivalent of Illiger’s Centropus, a widely 
spread group of Cuculide (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 hail! their own nests, and lay eggs with white, chalky shell. 
COULTERNEB, 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 Cursorius, a genus established by him in 
1790 for the Coure-vite of Buffon (H. N. Ois. viii. 
p- 128), who had alr eady seen that, though allied 
- the Plovers, it required separation. It was first ee 
known from an example taken in France (whence Cursorivs. 
Gmelin called it Charadrius gallicus), and Buffon in (After 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 
1 Mr. Sharpe (B. S. Afr. ed. 2, p. 161, pl. v. fig. 1), however, has bestowed 
the name on a species, Cewthmocheres australis (P. Z. S. 1873, p. 609), which 
apparently does not possess the Lark-like claw whence the name is derived. 
