COMMON PRATINCOLE. 71 



feigns lameness as the Pratincole. Before the breeding-season has fairly 

 commenced you may stand on a piece of fallow ground and watch a dozen 

 birds, each within pistol-shot, laying on their sides making apparently 

 constant efforts to expand a wing, as if in the last death-struggle, and yet 

 you may search in vain for an egg. 



I found the Pratincole breeding in considerable numbers on the islands 

 in the lagoons of Missolonghi iii 1873, and in a precisely similar^ locality a 

 little to the north of the entrance to the Gulf of Smyrna in 1872. In the 

 former locality I found plenty of fresh eggs in the last week of May ; and 

 in the latter most of the eggs were almost ready to hatch in the second 

 week of June. At Missolonghi the birds were wild, flying round us utter- 

 ing their peculiar cry before we landed on the islands. In Asia Minor, on 

 the other hand, they were evidently sitting hard, and allowed us to land 

 and approach them before they left their nests. They then evidently 

 attempted to lure us away from their treasures by feigning lameness, 

 standing with drooping wings, or running along the ground as if unable to 

 fly. When once upon the wing their flight was rapid and powerful, like 

 that of a Tern. They are not, strictly speaking, gregarious in their habits. 

 We never found anything like a colony of them upon any one island. We 

 rarely visited any of the numerous islands without finding at least one pair 

 of birds upon it, and perhaps none of the islands contained more than half 

 a dozen pairs, and they were scattered about at a distance from one 

 another. They do not make any nest, but lay their eggs upon the bare 

 ground, seldom, if ever, taking the trouble to scratch a hollow or to collect 

 what dry grass or seaweed may be at hand. They seem studiously to avoid 

 coarse grass or rank herbage, and prefer to lay their eggs on the dried 

 mud, sheltered only by the straggling plants of Salsola, which grow all 

 over the lowest and wettest parts of the islands. The number of eggs was 

 usually two, occasionally three, and only in one instance four ; probably 

 the latter clutch was the production of two females. Mr. Salvin visited a 

 breeding-station of these birds situated on the marshes in the interior of 

 Algeria : the whole flock rose in the air and came wheeling round uttering 

 their peculiar notes, some of them coming within a few feet of his head, and 

 then retiring again ; finally they all alighted one by one on the ground, 

 some lying on the ground as if dead for a few moments, then suddenly 

 rising again to circle overhead anew. 



The eggs of the Pratincole are very fragile, oval in form, being scarcely 

 more pointed at one end than the other. They vary in ground-colour 

 from citron or yellow- ochre to pale slate, richly spotted all over with 

 streaks and blotches of dark brown, approaching black, in some instances 

 most so at the larger end. The underlying spots of pale greyish brown 

 arc usually very distinct, and often impart great beauty to the egg, giving 

 it a marbled appearance. They vary -in length from T35 to I'l inch, and 



