LIMICOL^ 311 



that at night when changing its feeding ground it can sometimes be 

 seen flying at a great height above the ground. It also runs with 

 great speed, using its wings to aid it in balancing, like an Ostrich. 

 In addition to the gum above mentioned it feeds on locusts and other 

 large insects and reptiles and snakes of considerable size. Though 

 it seems to have escaped the notice of most South African observers, 

 there can be no doubt that the Gom Paauw possesses a gular 

 pouch ; this is a sac, or bag, lying in the front of the throat and 

 opening under the tongue into the mouth cavity ; it can be inflated 

 at the will of the bird, and is probably so used during the breeding 

 season. The Great Bustard of Europe has a similar pouch, which 

 is inflated during the breeding season, swelling the neck to a very 

 large size. Curiously enough, however, in the case of another 

 species, the Australian Bustard, the swelling of the neck is due to 

 the filling and blowing out of the sesophagus itself, the gular pouch 

 being entirely absent. 



Like other members of this family, the Gom Paauw makes no 

 nest, but lays its eggs, two in number, on the bare ground in a 

 slight hollow. There are three eggs in the South African Museum, 

 one of which was obtained at Nelspoort, in Beaufort West, by 

 Mr. Jackson. They are ovals, almost equally rounded at both 

 ends; the ground colour is a pale olive-brown, sparingly mottled 

 with a darker shade of the same colour in the one case, in the other 

 more heavily blotched with purplish and yellowish-brown. They 

 measure 3-i to 3'5 x 2-4. 



Order XVI. LIMICOL^. 



The birds included in this Order are chiefly shore- and marsh- 

 haunting forms, such as Snipes, Sandpipers, Plovers and their 

 allies ; to these are added the Stone-Curlews, Crab-Plovers, Jacanas, 

 Coursers and Pratincoles, as well as the members of the two other 

 families not represented in our fauna — the ChionididcB or Sheathbills 

 of the Antarctic Islands, and the extreme southern parts of South 

 America, and the Thinocorythidce confined to South America. 



The members of this Order are characterised by a bill which is 

 usually slender and has on each side a groove with the nostril 

 opening at its base ; the wings are generally long, and there are 

 always eleven primaries ; the legs, too, are generally long and the 

 lower portion of the tibia naked ; the toes are three or four in 



