378 



The Plover-like Birds 



by the absence of the hind toe and a relatively much longer tarsus, while the tail 

 is nearly or quite even, and their food is not taken on the wing. As might be 

 inferred from their common name, they are terrestrial and eminently "running" 

 birds, frequenting mainly the dry, arid, sandy plains and deserts, over which 

 they run with astonishing speed. In the typical Coursers (Cursorius) the bill 

 is relatively long and curved, perhaps the best-known species being the Cream- 

 colored Courser (C. gallicus) of the deserts of northern Africa, whence it ranges 

 to the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands, and east to Afghanistan and northwest 

 India, and occasionally wanders into continental Europe. In coloration it 

 is rufous-buff above and nearly white below, with the breast tinged with gray 

 and the flanks with blackish, while the wings are blackish, and the tail similar 

 to the back, all the feathers except the middle pair with a subterminal black 



FIG. 129. Courser, Rhinoptilus chalcopterus. 



band and white tip, and there is a white band above each eye which meets 

 behind the nape and is bordered below by a black stripe; the length is ten 

 inches. This is usually a shy bird, escaping the intruder by running swiftly 

 away or by squatting prone on the ground with which its colors so harmonize 

 that it becomes exceedingly difficult to detect it. This, and the other species 

 as well, feeds on insects of various kinds and occasionally upon seeds. The 

 two or sometimes three eggs are deposited on the bare sand. Three of the 

 remaining species are confined to Africa, while the fourth, known as the Indian 

 Courser (C. coromandelicus), occurs in the Indian peninsula and Ceylon. Pass- 

 ing over the Coursers of the genus Rhinoptilus with straight bills, of which there 

 are seven in various parts of Africa and a single exceedingly rare one in India, 

 we come to the so-called Black-backed Courser, or Crocodile Bird (Pluvianus 

 cegyptius\ which is the sole representative of its genus. It differs from its allies, 

 as already hinted, in having oval instead of slit-like nostrils, while in the inter- 

 scapular region the plumes are elongated and overhang the lower back. The 

 general color is slaty brown above, the crown, hind neck, and mantle of a greenish 



