264 BIRDS OF DAMARA LAND. 



The hides are dark brown, the ring round the eyes 

 reddish yellow, the legs bright red, and the front of the 

 toes bluish purple. 



308. Glareola melanoptera, Nordm. Nordmann's Pratincole. 



Glareola Nordmanni, Layard's Cat. No. 555. 



Gurney, in Ibis, 1868, pi. 8. 



Glareola melanoptera, Finsch & Hartlaub's Vogel Ost-Afrika's, 

 p. 633. 



[Mr. J. E. Harting possesses a pair of these birds obtained 

 by Mr. Andersson at Objimbinque; and Drs. Finsch and 

 Hartlaub (loc. cit.} refer to this species as occurring in Great 

 and Little Namaqua Land. 



As Mr. Andersson's notes do not contain any remarks on the 

 habits of this Pratincole, I may here quote the following inter- 

 esting account of the manner in which these birds attack the 

 swarms of locusts which are so destructive in South Africa, com- 

 municated to ' The Field' newspaper of February 26th, 1870, 

 by a gentleman who was engaged in a survey near the Fish 

 River under the Colonial Engineering Department : " The prin- 

 cipal enemy of these great swarms (of locusts), and the valued 

 friend of the Cape farmer, is the small locust-bird, Glareola 

 Nordmanni. ***,*,'* These birds come, I may say, in 

 millions, attendant on the flying swarms of locusts ; indeed the 

 appearance of a few of them is looked upon as a sure presage of 

 the locust-swarms being at hand. Their mode of operation, as 

 I saw it, was as follows : They intercept a portion of the swarm 

 and form themselves into a ring of considerable height, regularly 

 widening towards the top, so as to present the appearance of a 

 revolving balloon or huge spinning-top. They thus fly one over 

 the other, and, hawking at the locusts, gradually contract their 

 circle and speedily demolish the locusts within its limits. As 

 their digestion, like that of all insectivorous birds, is very rapid, 

 the form in which they thus enclose their prey is admirably 

 adapted to enable the lower to escape the droppings of the upper 

 birds. When they have consumed this portion of the swarm, 



