GLAREOLin^ GLAREOLA 



710. Glareola pratincola. Pratincole. 



Hirundo pratincola, Linn. Si/st. Nat. 12th ed. i, p. 345 (1766). 



Tringa fusca, Linn. Syst. Nat, 12th ed. i, p. 252 (1766). 



Glareola torquata, Meyer, Taschenb. ii, p. 404 (1816) ; Gurney, Ibis, 



1863, p. 329 [Natal]. 

 Glareola pratincola, Gurney, in Andersson's B.Damaral. p. 265 (1872) ; 



Dresser, Bds. Eur. vii, p. 411, pi. 153, fig. 1 (1874) ;' Sharpe, ed. 



Layards B. S. Afr. p. 652 (1884) ; Seebohm, Geogr. Distr. Charadr. 



p. 256 (1888) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xxiv, p. 53 (1896) ; Shelley, B. 



Afr. i, p. 195 (1896) ; Alexander, Ibis, 1900, p. 457. 

 Glareola fusca, Beichenow, Vog. Afr. i, p. 144 (1900). 



Description. Adult. General colour above brown, with a slight 

 olive shade ; primaries, their coverts and inner secondaries black, 

 the shaft of the first primary white, the secondaries slightly 

 tipped with white ; upper tail-coverts white ; tail very strongly 

 forked, feathers dusky brown, white on their basal halves; chin 

 and throat sandy-buff, margined by a black line, starting from below 

 the eye on either side ; breast brown, like the back, but paler ; 

 abdomen and under tail-coverts white; axillaries and most of the 

 under wing-coverts rich chestnut. 



Iris blue ; eyelids coral red ; bill black, red at the base ; legs dark 

 brown. 



Length 10-75 ; wing 7'10 ; tail, central feather 2-0, outer tail* 

 feather 3-75 ; culmen 0-55 ; tarsus 1-25. 



The female resembles the male ; a young bird has white edgings 

 to the feathers of the back and wings, and the cheeks and throat are 

 creamy-white, with narrow black shaft lines. 



Distribution. The Pratincole breeds round the basin of the 

 Mediterranean in Southern Europe and in Western Asia, and spends 

 the winter in tropical Africa, especially in Abyssinia and Nyasaland. 

 It can hardly be regarded as more than an accidental visitor to 

 South Africa, as the following list of recorded localities shows : 

 Cape Colony near George, September (Gird in S. A. Mus.) ; Natal, 

 once (Ayres) ; Damaraland, once (Andersson) ; Chisombe, October, 

 and Senna, July, on the Zambesi (Alexander). 



711. Glareola melanoptera. Nordmanns Pratincole. 



Glareola melanoptera, Nordmann, Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou i, 

 p. 314, pi. ii (1842) ; Finsch Hartl. Vog. Ost-Afr. p. 633 (1870) ; 

 Gurney, in Andersson's B. Damaral. p. 264 (1872) ; Barratt, Ibis, 

 1876, p. 212; Oates, Matabeleland, p. 325 (1881); Butler, Feilden 

 and Reid, Zool. 1882, p. 341 : Sharpe, ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. pp. 



