214 GRALLATORES. GLAREOLA. PRATINCOLE. 



tending to elucidate the manners of the species, I quote them 

 from the description he has given in the Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society. " When I first discovered it, it rose within 

 a few feet, and flew round me in the manner of a Swallow, 

 and then alighted close to the head of a cow that was tethered 

 within ten yards distance. After examining it a few minutes, 

 I returned to the house of T. EDMONDSONE, Esq. for my gun, 

 and, accompanied by that gentleman's brother, went in 

 search of it. After a short time, it came out of some grow- 

 ing corn, and was catching insects at the time I fired, and, 

 being only wounded in the wing, we had an opportunity of 

 examining it alive. In the form of its bill, wings, and tail, as 

 well as its mode of flight, it greatly resembles the genus 

 Hirundo ; but, contrary to the whole of this family, the legs 

 were long, and bare above the knee, agreeing with Tringa ; 

 and, like the Sandpipers, it ran with the greatest rapidity 

 when on the ground, or in shallow water, in pursuit of its 

 food, which was wholly of flies, and of which its stomach 

 was full." In the above description we recognise nothing 

 that allies this bird to the HirundmidcB, beyond certain pecu- 

 liarities possessed to an equal extent by some of the Terns 

 (of the family of the Larid^ and the order Natatores), as 

 well as by birds of other families and orders, viz. a full de- 

 velopment of the wings and tail for the purposes of flight, 

 which mere external resemblances will not imply any real 

 affinity existing ; on the other hand, its manners and ana- 

 tomy point out the true situation it holds in the natural 

 system. The Pratincole inhabits the borders of lakes, rivers, 

 and inland seas, particularly such as form extensive marshes 

 covered with reeds, and other aquatic herbage. In Hungary, 

 it abounds on the marshy confines of the lakes Neusidel and 

 Baladon, where it was seen by TEMMINCK in flocks of 

 hundreds together ; and it is also met with in some provin- 

 ces of Germany and ^France, as well as in Switzerland and 

 Italy, but in these latter countries only as a bird of passage, 

 or rather perhaps as an occasional visitant. In Tartary, and 



