532 PRATINCOLE. 
the bird is chiefly a migrant, though individuals may remain on the 
west coast of Italy, where the “Pernice di mare” is well known 
on passage. It continues its course to the Camargue in the south 
of France, where it finds suitable breeding-ground, except in dry 
seasons; while a few ascend the valley of the Rhone to Savoy 
and Lake Léman, and spread out over France as far west as the 
mouth of the Somme. In Holland an example was obtained on 
July 24th 1892, but the mountains of Central Europe form a barrier 
which the Pratincole rarely crosses; and, though found in Austro- 
Hungary, it is very rare in Poland. In Southern Russia and on the 
eastern side of the Black Sea the representative form is G. melan- 
optera, which has black—instead of chestnut--under wing-coverts 
and axillaries, with no white alar bar. Both of these forms (as well 
as one that is intermediate) are found in Asia (especially on salt- 
plains) as far east as the Tian-Shan range ; and both occur in South 
Africa down to Natal in the cold season. There are several other 
members of the family in the Ethiopian, Indian and East Australian 
regions, but none are known in the New World. 
Early in May the eggs, 2-3 in number, are Jaid, with their axes 
parallel, on the sun-dried mud which has been covered with water 
during the rains of winter; the shell is thin, the form very oval, the 
ground-colour buff or grey, marbled and zoned with black or 
purplish-brown spots: measurements 1°15 by ‘9 in. The note, 
when the breeding-place is invaded, is a shrill Aza, Ata, hia-ia ; the 
birds swooping close to the intruder’s head, and also cowering over 
the soil sideways or with extended wings, though this proceeding 
does not necessarily indicate the proximity of their eggs or young. 
The flight is very Tern-like, but when on the ground the bird runs 
with great rapidity. The food—often taken on the wing—consists 
of insects, especially beetles, grasshoppers and locusts. 
The adult has the upper parts clove-brown ; tips of secondaries, 
tail-coverts, and bases of the tail-feathers white; throat buff, 
enclosed by a narrow black bridle; breast brownish-buff; belly 
white ; axillaries ruddy-chestnut. Length 10°5 ; wing 7°5 in. The 
sexes are alike in plumage. In the young bird the upper parts are 
much mottled and barred with black and grey, and the breast is 
profusely striped with dark brown. The nestlings are clove-brown 
with slight mottlings on the upper parts, and white below; they can 
run, like Plovers, on emerging from the shell. 
