Family CHARADRIID^. Genus Vanellus. 



Subfamily Charadriinm. 



SOCIABLE LAPWING. 



VANELLUS GREGARIUS— (i'«//a^). 



Geographical Distribution. — British: Only one example 

 hitherto recorded as British, which, through an error of identifica- 

 tion, has been overlooked for nearly thirty years. It appears to 

 have been shot from a flock of Lapwings near St. Michael's-on- 

 Wyre in Lancashire in the autumn of i860, where it remained in 

 a case with other birds as a Cream-coloured Courser, even being 

 recorded as such (Yarr. Brit. B., ed. 4, iii. p. 241). It sub- 

 sequently changed owners, and was eventually correctly identified, 

 and exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society by Mr. 

 Seebohm on November 20th, 1888. Foreign: South-central 

 Palaearctic region. Only of accidental occurrence in Western 

 Europe ; Italy (4 examples), Spain (i, probably), Poland 

 (2, seen and identified by Professor Taczanowski). Breeds on 

 the steppes of South-eastern Russia, from the Crimea, north to 

 Sarepta (Seebohm), and to lat. 53° (Bogdanow), and south to 

 Astrakhan and the Caucasus ; on the plains of South-west 

 Siberia, and Turkestan, as far east as the Lake Saisan basin in 

 the province of Semipolatinsk, and Western Mongolia. Winters 

 in Arabia, Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia, and on the plains of India, 

 accidentally wandering south to Ceylon. 



Allied Forms. — Vanellus leucurus, an inhabitant in summer 

 of the steppes of Western Turkestan, and in winter of North-east 

 Africa and North India. Accidental in Europe : South-east 

 Russia, Malta, south of France. Differs from the Sociable 

 Lapwing, amongst other important characters, in having a white 

 tail. 



