154 BLACK-WINGED PRATINCOLE. 



autumn in the deserts of Tartary, from the Volga to the Irtin. To 

 the eastward it is foand in Asia Minor, Arabia, and Persia, while 

 southwards it penetrates for some considerable distance into Africa. 

 Hartlaub includes it amongst the birds of West Africa, and both 

 Verreaux and Du Chaillu have reported it from the Gaboon; Anderson 

 found it in Damaraland on the South West. On the East coast it 

 has been met with by various authorities in Egypt, Nubia, Red 

 Sea shore, Zambesi, Natal, and Cape Colony. 



Schlegel, in his "E,evue," p. 91, gives a lengthened account of 

 this bird, in which he says it is at once distinguished from G. 

 pratincola (Linnaeus) by the following characters: — The beak is 

 thinner, shorter, and more curved; the tarsi are longer, and the toes 

 shorter; the tail is shorter, and it only has the extremities of the 

 elongated feathers black; the throat is white, and the wings under- 

 neath are of a uniform smoky black, while in G. pratincola these 

 parts are of a lively russet brown. This latter characteristic led 

 Professor Nordmann to call it Glareola melanoptera, while Fischer the 

 same year, out of compliment to his colleague, named it G. 

 nordmanni. 



Pallas states that it is always found in small flocks, congregating 

 more numerously after the breeding-season. It never frequents water, 

 but is always found in arid and especially salt plains, where it seeks 

 grasshoppers and other insects. 



It runs as fast as a Plover, and is equally afraid of man. It flies 

 away when flushed, uttering the cry ' tirik-tirik,' like a Tern. It 

 migrates early to the south. 



It difl"ers so little in plumage from the well-known Pratincole, 

 that I have not thought it necessary to give a figure, and I have 

 stated all the points in which it diverges structurally or ornamentally 

 from that bird. 



It is figured by Pallas, Zoog., pi. 2; by Nordmann in the Bulletin 

 of Moscow, 1842, pi. 2, and an excellent plate of the species will 

 be found in the Ibis for 1868, (plate viii.,) in illustration of a 

 paper by Mr. J. H. Gurney, entitled, '"Notes on Mr. Layard's 

 'Birds of South Africa.'" 



The Q^^ has been described by Mr. Harting (P.Z.S., 1874, p. 

 454) from specimens received from Southern Russia through Herr 

 Moeschler. 



