56 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



Family (EDICNEMWsE. 



STONE-CURLEW. 



CEdicnemus scolopax, S. G. GMELIN. 



THE Stone-Curlew, often called the " Norfolk Plover," from its abundance in 

 that county, gains its generic name CEdicnemus, and its vernacular name 

 " Thick-knee," from a peculiarity of the young birds, which have swollen joints 

 to their legs until adolescence, a state of things which doctors would call 

 " oedematous." 



In Great Britain, in the breeding season, the range of this bird is practically 

 confined to the Chalk Wolds : that is to say, it breeds on open downs in Dorset- 

 shire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks., Bedfordshire, Herts., 

 Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, (these two its head- quarters), Rutland, 

 Notts., and Lincolnshire, to find its northern limit in E. Yorkshire. In the above- 

 mentioned it is a summer visitor, arriving in April and leaving in October, but a 

 few remain in open winters. In the extreme S.W. of England, it seems to be a 

 winter visitor only. Elsewhere it is a rare straggler, has only once occurred 

 north of the Tweed, and very seldom in Ireland. Abroad, it is resident in the 

 Mediterranean area ; north of that, in Europe, a summer visitor, not going north- 

 ward of the Baltic; a resident in S. Russia (up to about 50 lat.), Palestine 

 (Tristram), Asia Minor (Kriiper), and Persia (Blanford and St. John). It breeds 

 in Turkestan ; in India and Ceylon it is found all the year round. In Africa it 

 is not found further from the Mediterranean than Upper Egypt and Nubia 

 (Shelley), and the Canaries to the west. Three other Stone- Curlews inhabit 

 Southern Africa. There are also three American and three Oriental species, if 

 Esacus be included with CEdicnemus. 



Colour of adult : bill greenish-yellow, with a long black tip ; iris yellow ; 

 crown, back, and upper parts generally of a warm drab, all the feathers with a 

 dark brown shaft-stripe, which is most conspicuous on the crown and wing-coverts ; 

 primary coverts with light buff tips, forming a bar across the extended wing; 

 from the base of the upper mandible a dirty white stripe passes below the eye to 

 the ear-coverts, above this a sooty black stripe through the eye, and below it a 

 brownish streak from the base of the lower mandible, covering the greater part of 



