PRATINCOLES— CREAM-COLOURED COURSER 77 



larger plovers, it keeps more to dry situations, such as ploughed ground, or the 

 cracking mud of half-dried pools, where it often associates with rooks, starlings, 

 and lapwings. It prefers flying to walking, and is mostly found on opeD places 

 with a wide view, or cultivated, and especially ploughed, ground, the latter partly 

 covered with water. The nest, which is placed near pools on undulating sandy 

 ground dotted over with sparse plants, or on pastures with short grass, consists 

 merely of a shallow hollow lined occasionally with dry stems and rootlets. The 

 pratincole breeds in colonies, the nests being about 6 feet apart ; the eggs, three in 

 number, are heavily marked. The young pratincoles are able to run as soon as 

 hatched, and in case of danger press their bodies close to the ground, which their 

 down resembles in colouring. Pratincoles eat all kinds of insects, especially locu-t s, 

 grasshoppers, and beetles, capturing their prey in the air, or from plants or on 

 the ground. They are lively, energetic birds, in flight not unlike swallows, and 

 wading and swimming like plovers. When at rest, they look very like plovers, not- 

 withstanding the long pointed wings, and the forked tail which is always in motion. 

 The common pratincole inhabits the plains of the Danube, especially the 

 Dobrudscha, in flocks of thousands, and is not less numerous near the Volga, the 

 lakes of southern Russia, the Black and Caspian Seas and the Sea of Aral, as well 

 as in the steppes of Turkestan and southern Siberia, Asia Minor, and North Africa. 

 It is common in central Hungary and Greece, although rare in south-western 

 Europe ; Italy and southern France see it only on migration, but it breeds in Spain, 

 and a few stray northwards to Germany and Britain. On the muddy banks of the 

 Nile pratincoles appear in immense numbers after the inundation has receded. The 

 common species is about lOi inches long, and greyish brown in colour above. The 

 throat is buff, girdled by a narrow black band, the lower part of the body and upper 

 tail-coverts are white, the tail is greenish black, white at the base and brown at 

 the tip, the lower wing-coverts are greyish brown, the feet black, and the beak 

 blackish with a red base. 



Cream-coloured A rare visitor to the British Islands, the handsome cream-coloured 



Courser. courser (Cursorius gallicus) is a common Mediterranean species 

 ranonn£ from the Canaries and north-western Africa through south-western Asia 

 to north-western India. Now and then it has been found breeding in Sicily and 

 Spain, and occasionally it straggles into Great Britain, France, Switzerland and 

 Germany. In length it measures about 9 inches. The head is bluish grey behind, 

 with a white and a black band on each side. Although the larger quills are black, 

 the general colour of the plumage is that of the desert sand, which the eggs so 

 resemble in their sandy brown, ashy grey, and olive-coloured spots and speckles 

 that they are almost indistinguishable from the stones among which they are laid. 

 The courser takes its name from the speed with which it runs, this being so rapid 

 that the legs do not seem to move. These birds appear indeed to roll along rather 

 than run ; the male always leads the way, the female keeping about thirty paces 

 behind. At intervals a courser will check itself to pick some food from the ground, 

 and then dart on again as rapidly as before. Thus it will run for hours, never 

 attempting to take wing, and leading the inexperienced to think that it can be 

 caught with the hands, until suddenly, when hard pressed, it shows that it can 

 fly as well as it can run. 



