CROOK-BILL PLOVER. 101 



beasts avoid it, with the trochilos it lives at peace, since it owes much to that bird, for 

 the crocodile, when he leaves the water, and comes out upon the land, is in the habit of 

 lying with his mouth wide open, facing the western breeze; and such times the trochi- 

 los goes into his mouth and devours the leeches. This benefits the crocodile, who is 

 pleased, and takes care not to hurt the trochilos" There is, however, some truth in 

 the old fable, for Alfred E. Brehm, who, during his travels in northeastern Africa, 

 studied the habits of these birds, asserts that he several times saw this plover without 

 hesitation running up and down the back of the crocodile, as if it were a green lawn, 

 in search of bugs and leeches, even dai'ing to pick the teeth of its tremendous friend, 

 that is, literally to snatch away food particles which stuck between the teeth, or para- 

 sitic animals which had attached themselves to the mandibles and the gums. 



Related to the last-mentioned bird, but on longer legs with shorter toes, a bill 

 somewhat resembling that of the pratincole, and of an isabel color corresponding to 

 the sand of the desert it inhabits, is the cream-colored courser (Cursorius cursor), 

 found throughout the southern portion of the Mediterranean province, but known as 

 a not uncommon straggler to the British Islands during the autumnal season. It 

 lives on the arid sand-plains or on the bare elevated plateaus, where scarcely a tuft of 

 scanty herbage or a bush is to be found. It loves to frequent the bases of sand-hills, 

 and is sometimes seen in the miserable desert pastures or amongst the 

 sand-dunes on the outskirts of the oasis. In these dismal uninteresting 

 regions the courser trips about in pairs, or less frequently in little parties." 



Completely unique in the shape of the bill, and probably forming a 

 small group of its own, is the so-called wry-billed, or crook-billed plover 

 (Anarhynchus frontalis), since the end of the bill is not bent down, nor 

 recurved, but turned horizontally to the right, as shown in the accom- 

 panying cut. It was discovered in New Zealand by the French natura- 

 lists, Quoy and Gaimard, who, in 1833, published the first description of 

 this curious bird. The type in the Paris museum remained unique until y IG 47 _ Bill 

 1869, and the Anarhynchus became so apocryphal and dubious that G. bniedViove^ 

 R. Gray finally declared the alleged crook-bill to be an individual de- * r t ra f j^ 6 ' 

 formity, an opinion shared by many ornithologists of that day. Never- 

 theless, the strange crookedness proved to be the normal shape of the bill, the deflex- 

 ion being obvious even in the chick in the egg. The singular beak is thus described 

 by Mr. Potts from a fresh specimen : 



" Bill longer than the head, pointed, curved to the right or off side, curled slightly 

 on itself in a leaf-like manner, a long groove on each side of the upper mandible ; the 

 nostrils long, pierced not far from the base of the bill, fitted with a membranous pro- 

 cess, which, apparently furnished with a system of nerves, extends some distance 

 along the mandible ; interior of both upper and lower mandibles concave or sulcate, 

 which form is maintained to the point ; thus the inside of the bill, when the man- 

 dibles are closed, becomes a curved pipe, with a very slight twist. The tongue, when 

 at rest, lies well within the lower mandible ; it is partly sulcate in form, tapers to a 

 fine point, is much shorter than the beak, leaving a vacant space of six lines from its 

 extremity to the end of the lower mandible ; the base is furnished on either side with 

 a few spines (three or four), planted in the same direction as those in the roof of 

 the upper mandible ; the thick portion of the tongue is indented with four or five very 

 slight longitudinal furrows, terminating in the channel into which the tongue now 

 resolves itself, till it ends at the very acute point ; this sulcate form is attained by the 



