130 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



thus extremely difficult to find, the more so as the female 

 generally runs away from the eggs for a considerable distance 

 before taking wing. 



Mr. Robert Read writes to me : " A few pairs of the Stone- 

 Curlew still nest on the vast stretches of shingle along the 

 shores of our south-eastern counties, where the eggs are exceed- 

 ingly hard to find. Before the eggs are incubated, the old 

 birds keep away from the nest all day, returning at night, when 

 their shrill cries give rise to the local name of ' Night-Hawk.' " 



Eggs. Two in number, laid on the pebbles, without any 

 sign of a nest. Mr. Read says: "Sometimes they closely 

 resemble each other, but sometimes they are widely different 

 in colour and markings. I have seen the eggs lying side by 

 side, with a couple of stones in close proximity, which so 

 closely resembled the eggs, that the latter might easily have 

 been passed by unnoticed." The eggs are of a dark or light 

 stone-colour, and are covered indiscriminately with brown 

 spots or blotches, the latter being sometimes nearly black. 

 The underlying markings are faint grey, and are generally 

 obscure, but in one or two pale eggs they actually predominate 

 and the dark markings are in a minority. Axis, i '9-2-4 inches; 

 diam., 1*45-1 '6. 



THE COURSERS. SUB-ORDER CURSORII. 



The Coursers are entirely birds of the Old World. Like all 

 Plovers they have a schizognathous palate, but, with the ex- 

 ception of the Black-and-grey Courser (Pluvianus cegyptius}, 

 the nostrils are schizorhinal. The tarsus is transversely scaled 

 in front. The Sub-order contains many different forms, such 

 as the Crab-Plover (Dromas ardeola\ which lays a white egg 

 in a tunnel in the sand, and the Pratincoles, to which I shall 

 refer later on. 



THE TRUE COURSERS. GENUS CURSORIUS. 



Cursorius, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 751 (1790). 

 Type, C gallicus (Gm.). 



The True Coursers have a curious pectination on the middle 

 claw, which is notched on its inner side. Five species of the 



