Thick-knees 



placed, but the points of resemblance to the Plovers and more especially the 

 Oyster-catchers seem greater and of more importance than with the former 

 group. They are relatively rather large birds, none falling below fourteen inches 

 in length, and several exceeding twenty inches, and the plumage is quite uniform, 

 consisting mainly of variously mottled and striped shades of brown or buff. 

 They build no nest, but deposit the two or three gray sparsely spotted or streaked 

 eggs in a slight depression in the ground. 



The Thick-knees number about a dozen species, three of which occur in 

 South America and the West Indies, and the remainder in the Old World, the 

 only European species being the Stone Plover ((Edicnemus cedicnemus], which 

 ranges over temperate and southern Europe and east to central Asia, being 

 a migrant in the more northern portions of its range, but otherwise is mainly 

 a resident, or spends a portion of the winter in northern Africa or India. This 

 bird is about seventeen inches long, of a mottled pale brown above and white 

 below, streaked with dark brown on the neck and breast; there are two narrow 

 white wing bars and a white stripe beneath the eye. It is a very shy bird, once 

 common in many parts of England, but now rare and apparently approaching 

 extermination there. It prefers stony or sandy soil in flat, open, often desert 

 places, and is more or less crepuscular, feeding well into the night, its food 

 consisting of worms, snails, insects, larvae, etc. It runs with great swiftness, 

 and when forced to wing flies 

 strongly, but may often attempt to 

 conceal itself by lying prone upon 

 the ground with head pressed 

 closely to the surface, where its 

 mottled colors serve well to render 

 it all but invisible. Its note is a 

 loud, clear curlew, uttered mainly 

 at night. 



The other Old World species 

 of this genus, of which there are 

 half a dozen, are all natives of 

 Africa, and the three American 

 forms are also placed here. Their 

 habits are similar to those of the 

 species just described. 



Closely related but differing 

 mainly in having a large, massive, 

 compressed bill is the Great Stone 

 Plover or Thick-knee (Esacus re- 

 curvirostris} of the Indian penin- 

 sula and near-by counties, which reaches a length of twenty inches. It is 

 found singly or in pairs, mainly along the sandy or rocky banks of large 

 rivers or along the seacoast, where it feeds on crustaceans, mollusks, etc. Its 

 cry, Mr. Blanford says, is a loud, harsh, croaking note. From Australia to 



-3f^=i~?> ^ 

 rjSS^s 



/--- 



FIG. 130. Great Stone Plover, Esacus recurvirostris. 



