GLAEEOLID^ GLAEEOLA 335 



Russia and West Siberia during the northern summer, passes 

 through Persia, Asia Minor, Turkey, Egypt and Nubia, and winters 

 in West and South Africa. Curiously enough it has not hitherto 

 been met with in East Africa. 



It arrives in South Africa in October and leaves again in March, 

 and is found duriog those months over the greater part of our area, 

 especially when there are locusts about. It has not yet been 

 noticed in Rhodesia. 



The following are localities : Cape Colony — Berste River, Cape 

 division,. October (S. A. Mus.), Grahamstown and Queenstown 

 (Bt. Mas.), Port Bhzabeth and East London (Rickard), King 

 William's Town (Trevelyan), Peddie, February (S. A. Mus.), Ibeka 

 in Transkei, January (Oakley), Deelfontein, February (Seimund), 

 Orange- River near Upington (Bradshaw), near Aliwal North, 

 December, January (Whitehead) ; Natal — Newcastle, Ladysmith 

 and Colenso, October, November (Butler) ; Orange River Colony — 

 Vredefort Road, November (B. Hamilton) ; Transvaal — Potchef- 

 stroom, October, December, February (Ayres), Pretoria District, 

 December (Oates), March (Barratt) ; German South-west Africa — 

 Otjimbinque (Andersson). 



Habits. — This bird, together with the Wattled Starling and the 

 White Stork, are all known as Locust Birds in South Africa, and 

 are much appreciated for the great assistance they afford to the 

 farmer in helping to destroy the devastating swarms of locusts 

 which ravage the country from time to time. They are generally, 

 though by no means invariably, found in large flocks following the 

 swarms ; they have a bold, swallow-like flight and catch their prey 

 in the air, and they also run on the ground like plovers and pick up 

 " voetgangers," or young locusts still without wings. When 

 attacking a swarm they separate out a certain portion, and flying 

 round in an ever-widening ring, destroy all the enclosed insects, 

 snapping off their wings and devouring them whole. It is not 

 probable that this bird breeds in South Africa, Layard's notice of it 

 being undoubtedly due to a confusion with the Wattled Starling, 

 which is also known as the " Locust bird." Several observers have 

 come across Nordmann's Pratincole where there were no locusts 

 about, and state that it will devour beetles or any other insects 

 in the absence of its more notorious prey. 



