THE PKATINCOLE. 253 



insect tribes from the bill of this most dashing of all winged 

 hunters. We think it no ordinary instance of expedition 

 for a vessel to sail from London to Leith, and return, in the 

 course of a week ; but the pratincole, at the full stretch of 

 its speed, would fly round the globe in the same time! 

 From the valley of the Danube to Unst, the most northerly 

 of the Shetland isles, where a specimen was obtained by 

 Mr. Bullock, is therefore a mere morning flight for the pra- 

 tincole ; and when we consider the power and swiftness of 

 its wing, we may cease to wonder that a bird which is really 

 tropical in its habits, should be found in company with birds 

 of the North Sea, almost within the polar circle.* 



* In the genus G-lareola, the beak is short, hard, convex, compressed 

 towards the point, with a wide gape. 



The legs are moderate, slender, and naked, for a little way above the 

 tarsal joint. The outer of the three anterior toes is united to the middle 

 one by a basal membrane. The wings are very long, the first quill- 

 feather the longest. The tail is forked. 



Linnaeus, guided by the similitude of this bird to the swallows, placed 

 it amongst his Hirundines; in which respect he was followed by many 

 subsequent naturalists. Latham, however, placed it in juxtaposition to 

 the rails; and Cuvier, in the macrodactyle section of the waders (echas- 

 siers). Selby assigns it a situation among the Charadriadce (or plovers), 

 as does also the Prince of Canino. 



Mr. Gould, in his " Introduction to the Birds of Australia," says : " I 

 have for many years questioned the propriety of placing the Pratincoles 

 in the same group as the Plovers, or even in the same order, believing 

 them, as I do, to be a terrestrial form of the Fissirostral birds (Swallows). 

 Linnaeus placed them near the Swallows, and I think he was right in so 

 doing; and Mr. Blyth, one of the most philosophical of ornithologists, 

 entertains, I believe, the same opinion : but as nearly all other writers 

 have placed them with the Charadriadce, I have adopted their view of the 

 subject, and have accordingly placed them in that group/' 



The first known British specimen of the collared pratincole was 

 received by Mr. Bullock from Lancashire in 1807. It is preserved in 

 the museum of the late Earl of Derby. In 1812, Mr. Bullock killed a 

 second specimen in the Island of Unst, one of the Shetland group, a 

 description of the manners of which appeared in the " Trans. Linn. Soc." 



The collared pratincole is very abundant in Hungary, Tartary, and 

 the central parts of Asia, where it frequents lakes, inland seas, and 

 marshes, associating in flocks of hundreds together. It visits Western 



