272 



A VES ORDER CPIA RA DRI1FORMES. 



Fig. 33 THE COMMON TURN-STONE (Arenaria 

 interpres). 



very distinct one. There is no dertral swelling to (he end of the bill, and the 



metatarsus is transversely sealed in front, but reticulated 



Tlie Turn-stones, behind, while there is no connecting web between the toes, 



Sub-family as in the oyster-catchers. Two species of turn-stone are 



ArenariincK. known. 



The common turn-stone (A. interpres) is one of the most 

 cosmopolitan of birds, nesting in the Arctic regions of both hemispheres, and 

 ranging south almost as far as land extends. The male is a very handsome 

 bird in the nesting plumage, though 

 the females and young birds are 

 not so brightly coloured. It gains 

 its name of w turn-stone" from its 

 habit of turning over stones, often 

 of considerable size, in order to 

 reach the insects underneath. A 

 second species is found in Western 

 North America, the black turn-stone 

 (A. melanocephcda). 



These are curious birds, peculiar 

 to the Old World, where they are 

 found from South- 

 The Pratincoles, era Europe and 

 Sub-order Central Asia to 

 Glareolce. China, south to 

 India and Aus- 

 tralia. They have all long wings and a swallow-like flight, and they nest in 

 companies, laying eggs which are unlike those of plovers or snipes, being so 

 thickly scribbled over that the ground-colour is almost invisible. One of 

 them, the common pratincole (Glareola pratincola), has occurred in England 

 on a few occasions. The pratincoles have the claw of the middle toe pectinated, 

 as in the coursers, from which they are distinguished by their long wings. 



Although allied to the plovers and pratincoles, and, like these birds, pos- 

 sessing slit or schizorhinal nostrils, the coursers differ from them in having no 



basipterygoid pro- 

 The Coursers. cesses, and they may 

 Sub-order be differentiated from 

 Cursorii. the former by their pec- 

 tinated middle claw. 

 They have both aspects of the meta- 

 tarsus transversely scaled. Of true cour- 

 sers (Cursorius) there are five species, 

 the best-known of which is the cream- 

 coloured courser (0. gatticus), which 

 has occasionally wandered to England, 

 though its natural habitat is the desert 

 country to the south of the Mediterranean, where it is found from the 

 Azores and the Canary Islands eastwards to North-Western India. On 

 the island of Fuerteventura it breeds in large numbers, and the eggs, till 

 lately very rare, are now in the collection of every oologist. Two eggs only 

 are laid, on the bare ground, without any attempt at a nest ; they are stone- 

 coloured, with numerous dots and scribblings of brown, and are scarcely 

 distinguishable from the surrounding soil. Three species are found in 



Fig. 34. THE CREAM-COLOURED COJRSEB. 

 (Cursorius gallicus). 



