PRATINCOLE— CJoreofcl pratincola. 



The eggs of this bird are laid upon the bare ground, and are two in number. Their 

 colour is rather light dingy brown, covered with splashes and streaks of slaty blue and 

 dark brown. The male bird is supposed to aid in the duties of incubation. When 

 hatched, the young birds are covered with a soft spotty down, so like the stones and soil 

 in which they repose, that they can hardly be discovered even within a yard or two. For 

 the same reason, the eggs are very safe from unpractised eyes. About October the birds 

 take their departure, assembling together in flocks before they start on their travels. 



The general colour of the Tliick-knee is mottled brown and black. The head is brown 

 streaked with black ; there is a light-coloured stripe from the forehead to the ear-coverts, 

 and the chin and throat are white. Tlie back is brown streaked with black, and the quill- 

 feathers of the wing are nearly black, with a few patches of white. The neck and breast 

 are extremely pale brown, streaked with a darker hue, and the abdomen is nearly white, 

 with a few long and very narrow longitudinal streaks. In total length the bird measures 

 about seventeen inches. 



The close compact plumage of the PEATiycoLE, its long pointed wings, its deeply 

 forked tad, and swallow-like form, point it out as a bird of sw-ift wing and enduring 

 flight. 



The Pratincole is by no means plentifully found in the British Isles, making its VLSual 

 residence in the east of Euiope and Central Asia. Like the swallows, to which it is so 

 similar in form and habits that even modem zoologists have doubted whether it ought 

 not to find a place among those birds rather than with the Waders, the Pratincole feeds 

 much upon the wing, .snapping up the insects as they come across its path, and especially 

 delighting in picking the aquatic insects out of their native element without even staying 

 its aerial course. Its endurance is equal to its .speed, and a flight of two or three hundred 

 miles is but an easy journey to this bird, which can thus pass over a very great extent of 

 country in a few days. 



The nest of the Pratincole is made among thick aquatic herbage, and the eggs are 

 generally about five or six in number. Tlie general colour of the Pratincole is shining 

 yellowish brown above. The chin is whitish, and the front of the throat reddish white. A 



