230 



VANELLrS. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Nearest 

 allies. 



the Amazon in Eastern Peru (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1866, p. 199) ; Wallace records it from the 

 Lower Amazons (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, p. 591) ; Prince Wied found it not uncommon in 

 every part of Brazil which he visited ; I have a skin from Rio de Janeiro, Azara obtained 

 a skin from Paraguay, Cunningham found it in the Straits of Magellan (Ibis, 1868, p. 490), 

 and Abbott shot it on the Falkland Islands (Ibis, 1861, p. 155). 



It must be either very rare or very shy, for not one of the travellers named has a word 

 to say of its habits except Prince Wied. 



The Little White-winged Lapwing, or Three-toed Cayenne Lapwing, is the only 

 species of the genus which, when adult, combines the two characters — forehead black, 

 scapulars for the most part black. 



Young birds may easily be recognized by their small size or by the combination of 

 the two characters, no hind toe and secondaries mostly wMte. 



It seems to be nearest related to V. speciosus, and is probably the result of an 

 emigrating party of the ancestors of that species across the Atlantic from South Africa at a 

 somewhat later date than the emigration which produced the other South-American 

 Lapwings. 



