OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 117 



Family CURSOBIID.E. Genus GLABBOLA. 



COMMON PRATINCOLE, 



GLABEOLA PBATINCOLA (Linnceus). 

 PLATE XVII. 



Hirundo pratincola, Linn. Syst, Nat. i. p. 345 (1766). 



Qlareola pratincola (Linn.), Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 49 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vii. 

 p. 411, pi. 513, fig. 1 (1874); Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4, iii. p. 231 (1883); Seebohm, 

 Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 69 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 223 

 (1894) ; Lilford, Col. Pig. Brit. B. pt. xxviii. (1894) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. 

 iii. p. 133 (1896) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 53 (1896) ; Seebohm, Col. 

 Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 128, pi. 36 (1896). 



Geographical distribution. British: The Common Pratincole is a 

 rare visitor in spring and autumn individuals, doubtless, that have overshot the 

 mark in spring whilst on their way to their breeding grounds in Spain or the 

 Balearic Islands, or in autumn that have wandered westwards with the 

 tide of migrants from the east. It was first noticed by ornithologists in 1807, 

 when examples were obtained almost simultaneously in Lancashire and Cumber- 

 land. Since this date it has been captured in the following counties: Yorkshire 

 (three examples), Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk (four examples), Wilts, 

 Hants, Surrey, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. A Pratincole was 

 observed, but not obtained, in Breconshire ; another was shot, but not preserved, 

 half a century ago, in Co. Cork, so that it is impossible to say whether the bird 

 was rightly identified. A solitary example hails from Scotland, killed on Unst, 

 one of the Shetland group. Foreign: Southern and western Palsearctic region 

 in summer; Ethiopian region, summer and winter ; and accidentally in parts of 

 Oriental region in winter. It breeds in the basin of the Mediterranean, and in 

 Spain and France, as also in the lower valley of the Danube. North of these 

 limits, in the extreme north of France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and 

 Germany, it is as accidental as in the British Islands. Eastwards it is a 

 summer visitor to the basins of the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas, the salt lakes 

 of Bussian Turkestan as far as Ala-Kul, on the frontiers of Mongolia, and, 

 southwards, to Persia and Palestine. The birds that breed in Europe and North 

 Africa winter in the Intertropical portion of the Ethiopian region, and there is 

 evidence to suggest that other individuals of this species migrate from this area 

 south to breed in Cape Colony, Natal and elsewhere. We have elsewhere sug- 



