OF THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 165 



Family CHAEADEIIDiE. Genus Vanelltjs. 



Subfamily Gharadbiin^. 



SOCIABLE LAPWING. 



VANELLUS GEEGAEIUS— iPaWas). 



Plate XVII. 



Charadrius gregarius, Pall. Eeis. Euss. Eeichs. i. p. 456 (1771). 

 Chettusia gregaria (Pall.), Dresser, B. Bur. vii. p. 527, pi. 628 (1875). 

 Vanellus gregarius (Pall.), Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 225 (1894) ; 

 Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 127 (1896). 



Chaetusia gregaria (Pall.), Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 173 (1896) ; Sharps, 

 Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 174 (1896). 



Geographical distribution — British: One example only of the 

 Sociable Lapwing has been recorded as British, which, through an error of 

 identification, was 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 1860, 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 

 subsequently changed owners, and eventually was correctly identified, and ex- 

 hibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society by Seebohm on November 20th, 

 1888. Foreign : South-central Palsearctic region. It is of accidental occurrence 

 only in Western Europe ; in Italy (four examples), Spain (one, probably), Poland 

 (two, seen and identified by Professor Taczanowski). It breeds on the steppes 

 of South-eastern Eussia, 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. It winters in Arabia, Egypt, 

 Nubia, and Abyssinia, and on the plains of India, abnormally wandering south to 

 Ceylon. 



Allied forms. — Euhyas leucura, 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 Eussia, Malta, south of France. Differs from the 

 Sociable Lapwing not only generically, but amongst other important characters, 

 in having a white tail. 



