322 GLAREOLID^ CURSORIUS 



Habits. Blanford gives the following notice of the rather 

 remarkable habits of this bird: "The Crab Plover keeps to the 

 seashore or the margin of salt lakes, and is found as a rule in small 

 or large flocks sometimes much scattered. It feeds chiefly on crabs. 

 It runs actively and flies well, occasionally uttering a low, rather 

 musical call. This bird breeds in the Persian Gulf and in Ceylon 

 about May, and lays a single egg at the end of a hole in sand near 

 the shore. The hole is dug by the bird obliquely in the form of 

 a bow, curving up towards the end, which is about four feet from 

 the entrance ; there is no lining to the nest. The egg is pure white 

 and remarkably large for size of the bird, measuring 2-54 x 1*77. 



Family III. GLAREOLID^E. 



Skull (in all South African genera) schizognathous, no basiptery- 

 goid processes ; nostrils impervious, situated in a depression, not in 

 a groove ; tarsus transversely shielded before and behind, claw of 

 the middle toe pectinated ; hind toe present or absent ; fifteen 

 cervical vertebrae. 



Subfamily I. CUBSOKIIKSJ. 



No hind toe ; tarsus long, about one-third of the length of the 

 wing. 



Genus I. CURSORIUS. 



Type. 

 Cursorius, Lath., Index Orn. ii, p. 751 (1790) C. gallicus. 



Bill long and gently down -curved, slightly shorter than the 

 middle toe and claw, lower mandible also curved in correspon- 

 dence ; nostrils oval and pervious, placed in a slight depression at 



FIG. 103. Right foot of Cursorius rufus. x y. 



the base of the bill ; wings long and pointed, the first primary about 

 equal to or slightly exceeding the second ; tail short and square ; 

 tarsus and bare portion of the tibia with transverse scutes anteriorly 



